


The Highever Trove: A Red Jenny Tale

by Absinthiana



Series: They Who Stand [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age - Various Authors, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening
Genre: Action/Adventure, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, Cousland Backstory, Demisexuality, Diamondback (Dragon Age), Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fereldan Culture and Customs, Fereldans, Ferelden, Friends of Red Jenny, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, Highever, Horses, Humor, Loneliness, Multi, Non-Canon Relationship, Non-Linear Narrative, Pirates, Plot, Pre-Blight, Pre-Dragon Age: Origins, Rare Pairings, Romance, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smuggling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-02-06 23:58:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12828915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Absinthiana/pseuds/Absinthiana
Summary: Five years before the Fifth Blight, young King Cailan suspects a conspiracy against him on Ferelden's northern coast. He sends his most trusted agent to investigate. Red Jenny is waiting.This story is one of adventure and intrigue (plot-heavy) with canon-typical violence. There is an atypical love story between two atypical adults, so look for the fluff and atypical smut.[AU: Non-Warden Cousland.][WARNING: Do not consume if you are allergic to Teagan Guerrin or Nathaniel Howe]TRIGGER WARNING and NSFW chapters are noted in chapter names.





	1. Rainsoaked, Bloodsoaked, and Very Calm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Teagan learns the local greeting.

* * *

_Where in the Holy Blazes is that dog?_ Teagan swallows hard and slows Luthias to a canter. He's lost the mabari in the downpour. _Surely he'd chase us down if we were badly off-course._

In the darkness, he curses himself and every second wasted as the boy he's clutching against his chest bleeds out.

He listens to Luthias' hooves clatter against the packed roadway. The ping and spatter of rain against metal and leather armour. The choppy surf roaring from every direction. Luthias' sure, steady breathing. The boy's panting and snarling as he fights to stay upright against Teagan's chest.

 _A saddle would help him keep his seat._ Teagan's mouth tightens, wanting the saddle for the boy, and knowing he was right to slice it off and toss it to Fergus. A fully-armed man and incapacitated boy couldn't ride Luthias, large as he is, any other way. And Teagan owed it to Luthias to make the load as light as possible - an unknown route across rocky terrain in the dark and driving rain, guided by a frantic mabari to an unfamiliar destination?  The things he demands of his horse.

Teagan grips Luthias' reigns in his right hand, the boy's right shoulder in his left. So long as the lad can keep his seat on the huge black horse, Teagan can keep him safe. Hopefully.

For the first time in a week, Teagan is glad he came to Highever. It doesn't make his reasons - the King's reasons - for his presence here any more palatable, but if this fierce boy lives, it will salvage something of this sordid errand for Teagan.

This close to the water, the rain is colder. Almost salty. It pelts his face. Stings his eyes. Coils down his neck. Snakes along his chest and back. Freezing.

 _At least the boy's head is warm._ Teagan eyes the ornately tooled leather helm. Some sort of dragon pattern starting over the nose guard, the black and white scales jutting out at fierce angles over the eyes and stretching back along the skull. It suited. The boy had been fierce as a dragon when Teagan first saw him, silhouetted - on horseback, bow high - against the sudden lightening. Maker, how he screamed! Then tore through the ambushers on the rise above them with the mabari in his wake. He dropped four of the bastards in that single charge. They fell from the rise in front of Fergus' patrol, landing on the pebbles at their feet, and everything about Highever's men changed. They made way for the boy in black who charged toward them on that mettlesome mare. Down that switchback path, firing backward -  firing from horseback! - at the ambushers. Dropping another three even as they chased him. If this fierce lad aspired to a single moment of glory, that was it. _Maker, let this boy have bigger plans._

Stubborn, squinting, Teagan searches ahead for the mabari's form, knowing the beast will never give up on his master. He has only to find him again.

 _There!_ Teagan tugs Luthias's reins, turning them toward the spinning, barking wardog. _We must be close. Maker let us be close._ He leans forward, over the small frame of Fergus' fierce little "lieutenant" and urges Luthias into a gallop. The clatter of hooves is replaced by clomping. Crossing open country.

A sudden daggerpoint sears against Teagan's jaw. Grazing the edge of his beard, not quite breaking the skin under his chin, but so, so close.

 _Are all of Highever'_ _s skirmishers this tough?_

"Flaming Tits," growls a small voice in front of him, "Who the fuck are you?"

Between the daggerpoint and the roll of Luthias' gallop, Teagan swallows very, very carefully. "Teagan." _Stay calm. Stay calm._ "I was helping your Lord Fergus dispatch those smugglers. Do you remember the smugglers?"

"I remember they gurgled."

"An arrow in the throat will do that, yes."

"It was quite satisfying." Apparently appeased, the boy withdraws the daggerpoint from Teagan's jaw.

He glances down at the boy. Even in the silvery darkness, Teagan can plainly see that his jaw is clenched against the pain. _He needs to stay awake, if he can._ "How old are you?"

"Twenty."

_Right. And I'm the Queen of Antiva._

The mabari ahead whines.

"Tack," calls the boy, choking back a groan, "Tack, good boy!"

Tack barks and spins as they come into view, then darts ahead, back into the darkness.

Teagan frowns, urging Luthias toward the mabari, and eyes the boy's jawline. _Not so much as fuzz. He's nowhere close to twenty,_ Teagan seethes. _This isn't the Rebellion anymore._ He can't imagine an honourable man like Bryce Cousland sending a  boy into battle. Bryce simply wouldn't. Teagan would never have imagined Fergus doing it, but here they are. _It beggars belief that Fergus would go against his father. ... Does Bryce even know?_ That would explain Fergus' stricken look as he wrapped the boy in Luthias' blanket and passed him up to Teagan.

"Where are we going?"

"To Evan," Teagan hopes that this answer has meaning, even comfort, for the lad.

"Ross and Fergus?" His voice wavers, like the rain is washing all strength away. He sways.

Teagan grips the shoulder, boney even through the stiff leather, and pins him to his chest. "Ross told me to go this way. Fergus told Tack to lead me. Both were standing when we left."

"Good," the lad grunts.

_Maker, please let this stout little warrior live._

Ragged stone walls spring into view. Luthias' hooves clatter against stone. A crumbly fieldstone house looms ahead. Windows shuttered. No gates. _Not promising._

"Hello, the house!" Teagan roars.

Tack howls at the house.

The lad's head lolls forward.

_Oh, Maker, please, no!_

"Evan!" Teagan bellows, "Evan, we need a healer!" _Somebody be here, damnit!_ He pulls Luthias to a stop under an archway in the courtyard. Grimacing, _Maker, help this lad_ , Teagan clutches the boy to his chest, wraps his right arm around the lad's middle and pushes the boy's legs up, off Luthias from behind with his own thighs. He takes a deep breath and dismounts them both.

The boy whimpers. Coughs weakly. Keeps breathing.

Teagan doesn't dare move him further. Maker knows what he just did to the lad's wounds, and Teagan doesn't trust his own legs to walk. They feel like jelly. Cramped jelly.

The front door slams open, spilling candlelight across flagstone. Tack darts inside as an older brawny man with wild, steely hair bounds over the wardog and barrels, sword in-hand, toward Teagan.

_This must be Evan._

Women's voices trail after Evan. The entire household must be awake. Several boys appear under a nearby archway with pitchforks.

Evan grunts, swings the sword up to Teagan's jaw, the point jabbing the same spot as the boy's dagger, forcing his chin up.

 _What is this? The local greeting?_ Teagan stares down his nose and into Evan's eyes. He forces his voice to a calmness he doesn't feel: "My name is Teagan. Lord Ross Mac Eanraig and Lord Fergus Cousland sent me here. We need a healer."

Evan nods vaguely, peering down at the boy.

A plump, older woman bundled in a homespun blanket scurries into the yard. The lantern she carries swings wildly, crazing their shadows on the stone walls.

Tack dances at her feet.

_He hasn't stopped barking. Perhaps he doesn't know how._

The woman raises the lantern up to the boy and gasps.

Evan's sword and jaw drop simultaneously. He steps over his own blade and reaches for the boy, taking him slowly, gently, from Teagan. "Morag, wake that mage." He cradles the boy in his arms, his voice choking. "It's Pup."

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is part of LLF Comment Project, whose goal is to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites:  
> 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * Constructive criticism
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> [LLF Comment Builder](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/post/170952243543/now-presenting-the-llf-comment-builder-beta) 



	2. Blood and Small Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Teagan considers painted chunder boxes.

* * *

Morag leads the Templars through the heavy oak door, down the hallway, to the mage's room.

Pup's lips are blue.

The mage is already starting. She's about Morag's age - older than the templars. Motherly to them. Motherly to Morag. Her voice is sweet and low. Calm. It calms Morag, but she can't hear what the mage says, even though they stand next to each other.

The room smells of blood. It's all from Pup. Such a small body. So much blood. Morag's seen blood - first as a midwife's daughter, then as a Rebel soldier - but this isn't childbirth and it isn't war. _This is Pup. Who would want to hurt Pup?_

The Templars, Irminric and a young woman, quickly, gently strip Pup. Not like a parcel. Like a comrade. They talk to Pup. Urgent. Morag can't hear what they say, but Pup's dull eyes watch them.

Irminric grimaces at the clump of bloody wadding against Pup's stomach - field dressing residue - but nearly faints when he exposes the hole it concealed.

Morag's ears buzz. There is a hole in Pup's stomach. A hole. Wet. Red. Far too big to mend with what's in her sewing basket. She'll need more thread.

The mage says something to Irminric. They switch places. The mage now leans over Pup. Now the woman Templar blanches. Another wound. Another puncture in Pup. In the back. Until now, unnoticed. Untended. Unstaunched. Pup leaks onto the bed.

Light flickers along the mage's hands and she reaches toward the holes in Pup. 

* * *

_Flicker on the headland._ _Lantern at Overlook._

_Wait._

_No._ _Wrong place._

_Rainclouds._

_Wrong too._ _Wrong shape._ _Wrong season._ _Wrong direction._

_Wrong._

_Flicker._ _Pattern._

_Signal - Maker!_

_Fergus!_ _Protected._ _Ross._ _Patrol._

_Safe._

_Wrong._

_Low road._ _Eyes down._ _Eanraig's Cave._ _Black night._ _Black cave._ _Black water._ _Black tide._ _All eyes._

_None above._

_High road._ _More caves._ _Dry caves._ _Rocks._ _Large rocks._ _Cover for ambush._

_No eyes above._

_No._

_Must._

_Nobody else._

_It's cold._ _Why is it so cold?_

* * *

Teagan shivers under the homespun blanket even as the warmth of the mulled wine eases into his chest. He stares blearily at the rekindled fire in the hearth, its brightness welcome after riding so long in the dark. More wine splashes into the mug from an unseen jug. He smells the wholesome blend of mulling spices and firewood underneath a sickening mix of old sweat and kaddis and blood coming from himself and the wet mabari on the floor between him and his host. Teagan wants to apologize for stinking, but he can't get a word in.

Instead, Bann Evan Mac Eanraig apologizes, again, for his reception “- of course somebody could get hurt in a raid, but I wasn't expecting ..." The older man's sigh is heavy enough to have come up from the floorboards. "I certainly wasn't expecting ..."

"I just hope we got here soon enough." The wine tastes vaguely of blood. Teagan grimaces and swallows. He forces himself to sit back in the comfortably battered chair. Forces his muscles to straighten.

"If anyone could, you did. Ferelden has few finer riders ..." Evan's voice drifts. "Pup's strong," he says, more to himself, and looks to the heavy oak door on the other side of the modest hall. He clears his throat and pours a little more wine into Tack's dish. "Don't ever say the Mac Eanraigs stint," he announces to the mabari.

Tack snorts softly, then quietly laps his wine and stretches his paws toward the glowing warmth on the hearth. 

* * *

The room is warm and now smells of blood and elfroot and ozone. Morag is mesmerized, watching the mage mending Pup. Threads of light, slowly stitching the hole from the inside, out. Magic is a bottomless sewing basket, and for a moment, Morag wishes she were a mage. She could have started mending Pup in the courtyard. Did they waste time, getting to the bed?

The woman Templar is still on the other side of Pup's narrow bed. She's still talking to Pup. Urgent. Making Pup meet her eyes. Pup's eyes. Morag's stomach clenches. She's seen what's in Pup's eyes before: dying Rebels, injured beyond pain, welcoming the Maker's own release.

At the edge of her hearing, Morag can hear the mage. The steady cadence of her spell, her voice low and sweet.

Somebody in the room is sobbing. A woman. Begging Pup to hang on. 

* * *

_Upstairs, Oriana sings softly, her voice low and sweet, to the slight swelling of her belly. The morning light streams in through the window, bathing her golden curls and golden skin in sunlight as she stitches a miniature laurel wreath onto a bit of linen._

_She stops when she sees me, suddenly shy, but I know what she was singing, and to whom. She is so lovely. Fergus is already so happy. When she tells him, he'll float around the place with glee._

_I kneel in front of her and kiss her hand. I reassure her, in Antivan, to keep this a secret from passing servants, "[_ My beloved sister, your secret is my secret _.]"_

_* * *_

_Heather's fear couldn't be kept secret._

_The first was tragedy. Heather and Ross both in shreds for so long._

_The second almost took Heather to the Maker with him. Never known Ross so terrified._

_The third, now joy and hope mixed with fear. Everybody eggshells._

_Except Auntie Morag. Freeholder-born, lifelong midwife: screw convention, screw delicacy, and screw the nobility just for good measure. Mother and baby need more help this time._

_Auntie tells Mama._

_Mama tells Papa._

_It takes less than a month. A month and enormous donations to the Chantry and Kinloch Hold, but it gets a mage with Templar escort to Overlook Crossing in time. By Auntie's reckoning, a full two weeks before Heather needs them. Just as well. Auntie gets her chance to feed them all up properly._

_Fergus and I go with Ross to meet them as they come onto Highever's lands. An honour guard all the way to Overlook Crossing._

_"Heather will be in the very best of hands," Fergus promises Ross, clapping his back, "we just need to keep you safe, now, brother."_

_* * *_

_Ross wasn't safe._ _Spear!_ _So much blood!_

 _Ross is fine._ _On his ass._ _But fine._

_Whose blood?_

_Fergus?_

_Not bleeding._ _Crying._

_Why are you crying?_

_Fergus, don't cry._

_It's cold._ _Why is it so cold?_

* * *

Teagan shivers and shifts in his chair. The mulled wine is too strong to just be wine. It's making him sweat and suddenly eager to talk about anything that doesn't include the fierce boy in the other room. "I didn't realize we were so close to your lands, Bann Mac Eanraig."

"Evan," asserts the older man. "And you're not. Not exactly. We're just on the edge of Storm Coast. This was Overlook Crossing. It'll be my boy Ross' home when it's finished."

"Finished?"

Evan grunts. "It's been derelict for a long while. We're still cleaning up after the Orlesians. In truth, I didn't think Ross' Heather would want to move in before everything was completely ready, but ... the womenfolk say it's good luck to ... well, she's a sweet girl. Does her damndest by Ross." He clears his throat. "Anyway. Overlook's nothing special, but back-when, the overland caravans kept it going as a small inn and smithy. Rocks below meant the tenants had a respectable income from the bann for tending the signal tower in foul weather. Thirty-odd years ago, you know things were looking grim."

Teagan nods. He barely remembers fleeing Ferelden with his mother and elder brother. Mostly colours and shapes. The smell of salt air. The taste of pitchy water. The carnelian necklace his mother wore. When she held him and rocked him, he would watch the orange pendant rise and fall with her breath until he slept.

"Well. These Orlesian _chevaliers_." Evan grinds out the word like he's spitting rancid gristle from his mouth. "They didn't like the look of the innkeeper. So they set fire to the place. Signal tower, too." Evan blinks hard, staring into the fire and sniffs slightly.

Teagan patiently waits for the older man to master himself.

"Ol' Fearchar'd been giving the Orlesians a bitch of a time. But they couldn't catch him on water. So those bastards slithered ashore under cover of darkness and assaulted this place. This undefended place." Evan takes a deep breath, still staring into the fire. "It was their only clear victory against ol' Fearchar. We didn't need the signal tower - Mac Eanraigs are pilots! - But it royally buggered the Ferelden supply lines for a winter. That hurt everybody, but ..." Evan takes a swig from his mug and persists. "There were landsmen here when the Orlesians attacked. A family. What those chevaliers did ..." He clears his throat. "Anyway. Ol' Fearchar couldn't defend them. It gnawed. Say what you want about that ol' raider - most do - but he had a heart. So he kicked me and Eleanor off his ship, gave her the _Mistral_ and me the _Squall_ and promised Overlook Crossing to whoever sank one of their painted chunder boxes first."

Teagan grins into his mug. He can hear Bann Fearchar saying that, among many other things. The Storm Giant had been a huge man in the Landsmeet - a head and shoulders taller even than Evan, he could almost have been mistaken for an Avaar, were it not for the uniquely Ferelden twist on the obscenities that shot from his mouth whenever the debate lapsed into petty squabbles. Wild stories followed Bann Fearchar around like mabari. Teagan's favourite was the one that said he picked his teeth with lightning bolts.

"You know the rest: Eleanor sank her first warship and won the prize." Evan spreads his burly arms wide, encompassing the room.

Teagan looks sidelong at the older man. This is a richer account than ever he's heard, and something about the way Evan tells it - or maybe the wine - emboldens him to press. "Alone?"

"Near enough," he smirks. "We were always competitive. We still are! But it was war. The family at Overlook Crossing were our friends and our vassals. Our crew of landsmen. Their oath of allegiance bound us all, so what ol' Fearchar took to heart, so did we. We ran the _Squall_ and the _Mistral_ as a team on the water. We made sure their spyglasses cheated them. We could, in those days. Twin captains aboard twin ships. Those fucking snaileaters had no idea they were after two ships, not one. That day, the day Eleanor made history, the _Squall_ was the bait and the _Mistral_ the hunter."

"So if you'd caught them on another day, you would've sunk the warship?" Teagan presses.

Evan snorts, and shakes his head. "We can't all of us be the big heroes, lad." Something softens in Evan's eyes as he looks Teagan over. "Some of us, in landsman's parlance, simply have to put our shoulder to the wheel."

Teagan nods slowly, surprised at the kinship he feels with this large man. This small hero of the Rebellion. "Duty and glory and victory are separate things."

"And they aren't always found together. Besides - don't tell her," Evan grins conspiratorially and lowers his voice, "but Eleanor really is the better captain. She always had the better chance for a kill. I just ... we'd lost our elder brothers not a year before. I wasn't going to let anything happen to her."

"How old were you both?"

"Fifteen, Maker save us all."

"Is that why Fergus has such young soldiers?" Teagan blinks, startled. He can't remember what he'd meant to ask, but it wasn't that. Not now and not that bluntly. But now the question hangs in the room, just like the stinky steam rising from him. _Best to move forward. Maybe his uncle can explain or help or ..._

"What?" Evan turns in his chair to face Teagan, his face unreadable in the firelight.

"The lieutenant I brought you tried to tell me he's twenty. I got the feeling he's closer to fifteen."

"Maker's itchy balls, Teagan. That's Pup in there, not some little boy."

Teagan is sure he's missed the punchline of the joke. And perhaps the beginning of it. "Pup?"

"Oh, bless." Evan chortles into his wine. "Teagan, my sister might be Her Ladyship Eleanor Cousland now, but she was the Seawolf before Bryce ever met her. He's a good sort, really. Even if he is a landsman and a tuneless one at that. Anyway. When she was -" he clears his throat and sketches an enormous belly in front of himself.

 _Pregnant, yes,_ Teagan nods the man onward.

"The second time, Bryce would sing her that shanty about the two of them whenever he got the chance. As time went on, y'know ... well. It got harder for her to escape him," Evan chortles. "When Minna arrived, Bryce called her Pup as a way to keep on teasing Eleanor."

"Wait-"

Evan doesn't. "Minna's nearly twenty. Nobody gets to ride with Fergus unless they're at least eighteen. You brought us my niece, Teagan."

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Want a little more of Teagan's backstory?  
> **  
> [ _Rainesfere Welcomes You_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13834338) is a multi-chapter story all about how he became the Bann of Rainesfere at eighteen.  
> 


	3. Salty Gossip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pup gets bossy and Teagan hides in a library.

* * *

Evan pounds his fists on the other side of the door and shouts again: "Morag, woman! You're needed! That poor girl's keening!"

Startled and deafened by his first assault on the door, Morag shakes her head and shouts back, "What?" 

"Our grandchild's coming, Morag! Ross' lass needs you!"

Morag can practically feel Evan's face reddening. This is the first time in thirty years that he's actually said anything about any woman's pregnancy that doesn't include grunting or silly pantomimes. _Silly bugger._ "I come," she squawks to Evan through Irminric and the door. 

To his credit, the Irminric stands impassively through all the shouting and pounding, like it's the most normal thing in the world. Morag pats him gently on the shoulder. _He's a good lad._

Morag schools her voice to softer tones and addresses the mage bent over Pup. "Mistress Mage,"

"Wynne," the mage corrects softly as she glides her fire-y stitches through the gaping wound in Pup's middle. It's gaping less now. Her lips are no longer blue.

"Mistress Wynne, I must go. Will you need anything further for Pup?"

"No, my lady. And I shouldn't be very much longer..."

Morag nods, chewing her lower lip. _Pup's still so white. But this is Heather's third try. She won't labour long. Possibly not long enough to give Mistress Wynne a chance to help, but Pup ..._ Torn, Morag stands with her hand on the door handle. "Will you be strong enough, Mistress Wynne ... if Heather or the babe need the magic?"

Mistress Wynne's eyebrows knit together. Her eyes flicker to the Templar across the bed.

The Templar nods slightly, patting a pouch on her belt.

Mistress Wynne nods, still stitching Pup. "I will be strong enough, yes."

"But will you be fast enough," asks a small, ragged voice.

They all stare at the bloody form on the bed.

Pup opens her eyes and grimaces. "Mistress Wynne, is it?"

The mage nods. She's still stitching up Pup's wounds, but she's staring into the eyes of the pale and sweaty young woman under her hands.

Pup takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, through her nose. Slowly, her grimace is replaced by an expression Morag's come to think of as Cousland Steel. "You've stoppered me up, Mistress Wynne. Thank you. Heartily. I'm sure I could do with more of your help, but for now, I'll keep."

"'Keep,' my lady?"

"I won't bleed to death now, will I?"

"Well, no," Mistress Wynne concedes slowly, "no, you won't."

"Then I gratefully refuse any more of your help until I know that Heather and her baby are out of danger."

Morag exhales a breath she didn't realize she was holding, and opens the door behind her.

As Mistress Wynne nods, her threads of light seem to flicker and bind off. "My lady, you will need more healing," she gently insists. "You've lost a great deal of blood. And you're still very badly hurt. Your dressings will need to be kept scrupulously clean."

"I understand. I promise to stay put and be very boring until you've seen my Auntie and cousin through this and had some rest of your own."

"I'll have to take Ser Rowan with me for the delivery. Will you be all right with Knight-Lieutenant Irminric?"

"Of course. We're old friends," Pup's voice, though weak, affects the pompous tones of a certain arl, "we go hunting together outside of Denerim every Landsmeet and then we go to see and be seen in The Gnawed Noble afterward." Pup snorts and smirks weakly up at Mistress Wynne.

Mistress Wynne raises her eyebrows at the tough young woman.

Irminric chuckles softly from the doorway.

Ser Rowan simply stares.

"Pup," Morag barely has the heart to reprimand her, "Pup, you do as you're told."

Pup sighs. Her ragged voice softens and slurs with exhaustion. "Yes, Auntie. I'll sleep. When I wake, we'll play cards. Maybe gossip about his sister." 

"Is there gossip?" Irminric sounds genuinely astonished.

"About Alfstanna? Pfft. She's far too upstanding. I'll just make up somethin' salty..." Pup drifts off.

Mistress Wynne rises from her knees, stretching slightly, and looks to Irminric.

He nods in answer to an unspoken question, his hands had been resting on the pommel of his sword. Now they grip the pommel, loosening the sword. He nods again.

Ser Rowan stands and repeats Irminric's gesture.

Morag shifts uneasily from foot to foot. Something is happening.

Mistress Wynne bends over Pup, placing both hands on her curly head. A warm, candle-like glow emanates from her hands, and washes over Pup, whose breathing becomes easier and deeper. The mage nods and smiles reassuringly at Morag.

The Templars exhale. Whether it's because the Something happened, or didn't happen, Morag can't tell.

"She'll knit together a little more while she sleeps. Lead the way, Lady Morag."

* * *

Teagan chews thoughtfully, listening to the commotion of the midwives from where he sits on a hammock in the empty kitchen, blissfully out of everybody's way. 

He hadn't expected - well, he still wasn't sure what he'd expected of the house, beyond that they must take the wounded boy - _woman_ , and heal him - _her_.

It's humbling to find such hospitality, given the nature of his arrival. Not just the fire and Bann Evan's mulled and likely-spiked wine, but the things his wife Morag must have arranged. After Evan's daughter-in-law called him for help, a tall, wizened old dear in a wimple came into the hall. Without a word, she pulled Teagan up by his collar. Astonished, he'd let her march him to a screened-off corner of the kitchen where a steaming tub was waiting. She nodded at the tub, nodded at him and gave him a look that suggested he'd better strip down and get into it before she dragged him toward cleanliness by his pinched earlobe.

In fact, the entire household seemed to be looking for extra work: after his bath, he discovered that his weapons and armor had been swapped for soft breeches, some cording, kid boots and a thick woolen tunic. The boots were a fair fit, but the breeches and tunic were too big by half. Teagan used the cording so thoughtfully provided to save himself from future social disaster. A hammock holding a thick homespun blanket, some bread and a hunk of cheese was strung up just beyond the screening, slightly behind the hearth.

Teagan suspects that somewhere in this strange house, the pitchfork-wielding boys from the courtyard are tending to his armour and sword, and that they've already watered, fed, brushed down Luthias and installed him in a clean, dry stable for the rest of the night.

Left with nothing but his own company in the warm kitchen, Teagan dozes, but can't sleep.

He wonders how the fierce boy in the other room is faring. _Not boy. Girl. No: woman. Minna Cousland. Maker, but she can ride a horse._

Tegan tries to put a face to her name. A face that isn't the screaming skirmisher in the leather dragon helm. He can't.

The only thing he remembers about Minna Cousland is Eamon's fight with Bryce. But anybody unfortunate enough to be at Eamon's Denerim estate four years ago would remember at least parts of it. Both men had been uncharacteristically loud.

* * *

_For his part, Teagan hadn't noticed when they entered the library. He'd been looking for something to help him forget the unseasonable rains that were keeping him from his planned hunt. When he realized the two men were there, he didn't bother announcing himself because he didn't think they were staying._

_It was the sort of gamble that reminded Teagan why he didn't, as a rule, gamble._

_Because stay they did._

_Their angry voices bounced off the walls like frantic mabari._

_He was trapped, kneeling on the dusty floor behind a shelf while two noblemen bickered about a person who existed to him only in the abstract sense. He was sure he'd never seen the girl. Indeed, that was the crux of it: this Minna girl was of marrying age, born to one of Ferelden's most distinguished,_ blah blah, _powerful,_ blah blah, _her parents would not present her at Court, and Eamon took it upon himself to be upset by what they did with their own daughter._

_As distasteful as Eamon's interference was, Teagan wasn't surprised. In fact, he'd heard his elder brother's entire argument about Minna Cousland several times in the months leading up to that Landsmeet. Or rather, he'd been trying to eat during their monthly family dinners in Redcliffe while Eamon made the noises that were probably his argument. Saying Teagan had "heard" Eamon's arguments implied that he'd listened to any of it. Teagan had been hoping that his brother would see reason and drop the issue before the Landsmeet ever began, but he'd underestimated Eamon's talent for interfering. Clearly, the Arl of Redcliffe needed more to do. Instead, Eamon had been harassing Bryce Cousland to reconsider his position since the Landsmeet began, and now it was at a head._

_Bryce's voice was clear and firm. "Eamon, if this is the kind of Ferelden you want to build, then you and Isolde get to work and have your own daughter. Spend sixteen years teaching her that the only opinion worth having is the one a man gives her, and then parade her around the Landsmeet Chamber like a mabari bitch ready for servicing! In fact, why wait that long? I hear the Orlesian nobility usually give their "dear" daughters their marching orders at fourteen."_

_"Bryce, you are willfully misunderstanding my point."_

_"No, Eamon. You misunderstand mine: presenting a daughter at Court is an Orlesian custom, and it's_ vile. _The heirs of House Cousland were introduced to their King years ago, in accordance with five hundred years of Ferelden tradition. If you weren't there, that's hard cheese."_

 _"Bryce, it's not just about introducing Minna to Maric," Eamon cajoled, "think about the political ramifications of Cailan being so entirely under_ that _girl's thumb -"_

_"I understand politics. Ferelden hangs between the Crown and two teyrnirs. Two. Both must support the King if the Bannorn is to follow. Loghain is Teyrn of Gwaren because he earned his place - so says Maric, and that's good enough for me."_

_Eamon made some sort of flustered snort._

_"_ That," _pressed Bryce, "that makes his daughter an eligible match for our future king. If you have objections about that arrangement, then_ you _take it up with_ your _brother-in-law."_

_Eamon started blustering._

_But Bryce had built up momentum, and he wasn't stopping. "I'd be more concerned with the relative health of both of Ferelden's teyrnirs, Eamon. Think about it: twenty-odd years after the war, the Teyrnir of Highever is prospering. Highever the city now rivals Amaranthine in size. Their workshops and warehouses run from dawn 'till dusk. Ships and carts arrive and leave packed with cargo. Land and sea are patrolled. There is work to be had. The crafthouses prosper. Sovereigns flow from the Coastlands to Denerim in a steady stream. Not so in Gwaren. The war's been over there for just as long, yet Gwaren languishes."_

_"Celia-" Eamon interjected._

"Teyrna _Celia is a sensible woman and a capable foreman, but there's more to governing than rebuilding the walls. This is where Teyrn Loghain is letting Gwaren down: no new trade and no new settlers because Loghain can't abide foreigners. Of any kind. He spends so little time there, that Gwaren might as well be governed by his portrait. Perversely, his people love him so dearly, they don't see the harm he's doing. If Cailan marries Anora, that could give Loghain the kick in the ass he needs to go back to Gwaren and do right by the people there."_

_Eamon grumbled, reluctant to agree on an obvious point, so Bryce pressed further._

_"She's a fine girl," Bryce's voice settled into its usual mellow baritone, "Anora and Cailan were raised together. Perhaps they're even friends. It seems like the kindest sort of arranged marriage for both of them."_

_From his hiding place behind a dusty copy of_ Arancia's Illustrated Monograph on the Properties of Seaweed, _Teagan frowned and nodded at Bryce's point. Cailan's marriage to Anora was made on him before he was old enough to make it through the night without weeing his bed. But Cailan and Anora did seem to share a friendship. It might not be so terrible for him._

_"She's a fine girl, perhaps. But a girl without a drop of noble blood, Bryce. If you and Eleanor would see sense and present your daughter, Cailan would -"_

_"Would_ what _?" Bryce, usually so affable, suddenly sounded quite frosty._

_Frosty enough to give Eamon pause._

_Teagan smirked from his spot behind the shelves._ Surely, Eamon doesn't have the brass to tell Bryce that Cailan would do anything other than take the girl as a mistress. _He loved his nephew - both his nephews - to a fault, but Teagan was well aware that Cailan treated pretty girls - and even not-so-pretty girls - like tiny frilly cakes at a banquet held in his honour._

_Bryce left shortly after that._

_Eamon pulled a decanter from a shelf and poured himself a large drink._

_"I could use one, too," ventured Teagan from behind the shelf. He smiled as he listened to his brother pour a second and wander over._

_Eamon handed his younger brother the glass, and sank down beside him, defeated._

_"An angry father is a terrible thing," Teagan observed calmly._

_Eamon nodded slowly. He'd had a personal encounter with an angry father just before he returned to Ferelden, and the slight crook on the bridge of his nose served as a daily reminder._

_Teagan had been a boy of eleven at the time, but that was old enough to learn the lesson. He nods in the direction of the library door, left open when Bryce Cousland stalked out. "If he were ever given cause, that angry father could destabilize Ferelden, my Arl."_

_Eamon sighed heavily and nodded._

_"Besides, there might be another reason why she hasn't been presented at Court."_

_"Such as?"_

_"Maybe she spits."_

_They'd laughed, clinked their glasses together. Eamon's wife Isolde found them a few hours later, still on the floor, empty decanter between them. They'd been singing saucy songs from Ansburg and it had worried the servants._

* * *

 


	4. Introductions, Mabari Style

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Teagan and Minna finally meet.

* * *

  _Warm and cradled, Teagan wanders the Fade. A bay mare charging toward salt spray becomes a carnelian stone made of a lullaby and flickering candlelight, then the sensation of sunlight on softly rippling water. He wanders into the soothing swirl of a hearth fire and baking, before a billow of flowery steam washes over him. Something about the steam reassures him that he’s in Ferelden. There is a woman, but he can’t make out her face, because she never had one. Her voice is as soft as the steam and almost as near. Teagan breathes the steam in, straining to hear the sunlight-warm voice that's as deep and tangy as raspberries. He knows she has a face, now. Something happened and she has a face, which he yearns to see, but every step he takes toward her seems to move him backward._

Water splashes on a stone floor.

A heavy chair scrapes.

Teagan’s eyes snap open. _Fieldstone chimney … but not mine. I’m rocking on my side. Maker, how am I rocking?_ His fingers slowly explore whatever it is he’s sleeping on. _Why am I sleeping on a string sling? Wait – it’s a hammock. But not on a ship. Who do I know with a hammock?_

Water splashes on the stone floor.

A woman murmurs something. Her voice is mellow and close. Behind him. Just below.

Another woman and a man chuckle softly. A large dog snorts.

Flowery steam hangs in the air.

As does the weaker smell of wet dog.

* * *

The soap’s far too flowery for Minna’s taste, but since she’s having her hair washed in a house that isn’t her own, by hands that aren’t her own, she’s hardly in a position to complain about soap that isn’t her own. Besides, it’s a fair bet that the flowery soap is an improvement on how she smelled when she arrived. With the pain gnawing at her left side, she’s grateful to be breathing and therefore determined to enjoy the experience of getting the old sweat and grime washed out of her hair.

“This is the most exciting bath I’ve ever had. Certainly the most populated,” she says, as nonchalantly as she can, to Quiet Peg, whose gnarled fingers are working suds along her scalp. Nonchalant is difficult while laying on the back of a high-backed wooden chair that’s tilting into a washtub like an unloading wheelbarrow, but she manages. Hopefully.

Quiet Peg smiles down at her with her wrinkled-apple face and winks.

“I appreciate the help,” Minna offers to Irminric, who is firmly but gently pressing her hips against the back of the wooden chair, keeping her and the fur greatcloak she’s swaddled in from sliding head-first into the washtub. Tack’s helping: his enormous head rests on one of Irminric’s hands. The whole chair shakes slightly from the force of Tack’s full-body tail-wagging, but Irminric seems to have the chair’s stability under control.

“I’m only doing it for the fallacious gossip,” he smirks.

Quiet Peg chortles softly and pours a mug of clear, warm water over Minna’s head, rinsing the last of the suds free.

“Mistress Peg, you’re one of the Maker’s own blessings. Thank you.”

Quiet Peg wraps a drying cloth around Minna’s hair and kisses her gently on the forehead.

“Right,” Minna says to Irminric, “if I’m done, then we should straighten me up before all the blood stays rushed to my head.”

The heavy chair scrapes against the stone floor.

The three humans wince and look at the screening: there’s a sleeping man in a hammock just past that. A guest.

“Maker,” Minna breathes, “I hope we didn’t wake Ser Egan.”

Tack rolls his eyes and snorts in disbelief.

“I doubt it,” rumbles Irminric, “most men would still be knackered after last night.”

“Would you?”

“Unlikely, but I’m a Templar.”

“Braggypants.”

Irminric snorts, “No, Min. I’m just stating a fact: Templars are not ordinary soldiers. If Ser Egan is already awake, he’s a very tough bugger.”

“Well, if I were a gambling sort,” Minna begins.

Quiet Peg frowns slightly and shakes her head.

“I’m not. Not really,” Minna defends, “Besides, you saw the bruise he left on my shoulder. Maker’s nutsack, the whole thing’s purple. Man’s got hands the size of apple baskets.”

Quiet Peg cackles softly.

“Min,” Irminric offers, refraining from lecturing Minna on blaspheming in front of a Templar, “Ser Egan was trying to help you.”

Tack huffs in agreement.

“Oh, I understand: rocky terrain, bad storm, Tack barking his head off and I’m sure my bleeding all over him didn’t help. Based on the blotch he left on my hip – that one’s blue – I must’ve had trouble staying up. But he got me here, so my coin’s on Ser Egan being a very tough bugger indeed.”

Irminric grunts as he hoists the chair, and its occupant, up.

“You really don’t have to –”

“I really do. Senior Enchanter Wynne’s very sensible instructions are that you are not to walk until she finishes with you.” He slowly carries the chair-with-passenger toward the table in front of the hearth.

“I think it’s a lot of fuss,” Minna weakly protests.

“That’s fine. Shut up.” His steps are short. He keeps the chair as steady as possible.

“When did you get so strong? Should you even do this more than once a day? You are getting on, y’know.” Minna’s smile rings like a bell in her voice.

Irminric huffs in laughter, “I’ve always been this strong, you obnoxious whelp. And if I’m stuck here playing nursemaid, I need to keep up with my training somehow.” His footfalls are slow and heavy.

“Well, thank you very much. I’ve never been a training dummy before.”

“You’re welcome.”

The chair returns to the floor with a clunk.

“Andraste’s smoking pubes!” Minna growls, clenching her jaw and savouring every syllable of the blasphemy. Something about swearing helps her to fight the searing pain threatening to knock her out.

Tack’s low growl fills the room.

“Maker’s – Min, I’m so sorry!” Irminric shoots an uncertain glance at the mabari.

Min shakes her head, shaking and sweating. She looks up at Irminric – her eyes black holes in her bone-white face – and shushes his contrition. “No lasting damage – Tack, leave Irminric alone.”

The mabari snorts dismissively at the big man, then trots over to his mistress and gently places his head in her lap.

“–I’ll be fine once Mistress Wynne’s rested and finishes patching me up.” Minna absentmindedly caresses the mabari’s floppy, unclipped ears and scratches his chin. They both find it relaxing. She’s stopped shaking.

“You will. But you’re going to be very tender,” Irminric warns, “if you’d just let her finish when she had you ...”

“Wasn't an option.” She breathes deeply, reconciling herself to the pain. “I won't be delicate for much longer.”

Tack sighs and tilts his chin into Minna’s scratching fingers.

"I'm so sorry your reward for fortitude will be such ugly scars."

"It's not like anybody can see."

"Actually ... you should let your mother know. It might affect a match."

"I'll be damned if I'll get another to match. This hurt plenty."

"Min, you shouldn't make light of-"

"Ugh, you sound like Lady Landra. Well. Less drunk. But still."

The Templar frowns.

Minna pulls her face into an exaggerated pout. "I know, I know. Girls aren't supposed to have scars. Or knocks. Or bruises. So says Irminric." She smiles gently and clasps his larger hand in both of her own. "That's what puts you among the very best of men."

Quiet Peg pecks Irminic's cheek on her way back to the hearth with a basket full of foodstuffs.

"Quite so. Sadly, life is full of rough stuff. Especially for the innocent and undeserving. I think because they don't know how to duck. But I do! So I'll collect scars and knocks and be happy I've survived to have them. Also bruises. -  Actually, I should thank Ser Egan for mauling me when he wakes up. He’s saved me from wearing two of the most absurd gowns.”

Quiet Peg snorts from her place at the hearth. The smell of coffee overtakes the steamy flowers and wet dog.

“No, they really are awful. No pockets! And the necklines are far too far from my neck.”

Irminric chuckles. “You sound like Alfstanna.”

“I’ve always found her to be a sensible role-model.”

“So is your own mother, Min. Lady Eleanor would never make you wear a gown that was … inappropriate.”

Quiet Peg nods agreement and presses a mug of hot, sweet coffee into Minna’s hands. She doesn’t move back to her work until Minna obliges her with a small sip.

“Says the man who gets to wear the same thing every day.”

Irminric shrugs and scratches at his red-brown beard. “It’s good to be a Templar.”

Quiet Peg places three steaming loaves of bread on the table. She follows them with several knives, a bowl of apples, a stack of plates, a half a wheel of cheese and a candle, before finally sitting down with a bit of a sigh.

“I’m starving,” Minna observes. She takes a plate and reaches carefully for the nearest loaf.

Tack lifts his head off his mistress’ lap, and places it on the table beside her plate.

Quiet Peg frowns at Minna and shakes her head.

“Tack’s hungry, too.”

Tack wistfully eyes the bread and cheese and apples.

Irminric watches the silent proceedings, his hand in the air, halfway to the cheese.

Quiet Peg eyes Minna’s left side, raises an appraising eyebrow, then glances to the slop bucket by the door.

“No, I won’t gorge. I won’t make myself sick.”

Quiet Peg purses her lips and glances to the screen by the hearth.

“I won’t! My eating a little bread with my coffee won’t wake him up, I promise.”

Tack snorts impatiently and trots over to the screen. He barks softly at the man behind the screen.

Quiet Peg scowls at the mabari.

“Tack, you let Ser Egan rest!” Minna strains to reach the mabari’s wagging tail, but in her current state, all she manages to do is wave at Tack’s bum, which waves back.

Tack snorts again and noses the screen aside, revealing the object of the conversation: a man who is double-checking the cord holding his borrowed breeches up. The torso of his copious tunic is bunched under his armpits.

Tack barks triumphantly at the man.

He’s tall, by Minna’s reckoning, with jaw-length, dark hair braided in the front and pulled behind his left ear in Ferelden style. He sports a tidy goatee, looks to be in his late twenties or early thirties. His exposed torso is as well-muscled as any knight. Possibly better, but however much Minna trains with Highever’s knights, she’s never seen any of them without a shirt on, so she can’t compare. Except to Fergus and Ross - she's patched them up on any number of occasions - and they're both pastier than this man. Since they got married, they’re also softer than this man around the middle. Neither of them have a line of hair on the stomach that runs under the waistband like this man does.

This man who is staring.

Right at her.

 _Maker, I’m staring. And now I’m blushing._ Minna forces herself to blink and looks to Irminric, who very unhelpfully grins and waggles his eyebrows at her. If she were feeling stronger, she would knock him between those waggling eyebrows with one of the apples. Then she’d cheerfully slit her own throat with one of the knives. “Ser Egan, I’m so sorry about Tack –”

Tack dances around the man, huffing in approval.

“No, not at all. After last night, I’m glad he’s pleased to see me.” The man pulls his tent of a tunic down. It reaches past his knees. “But my name is Teagan, my Lady.”

Tack dances back to his spot beside his mistress, returns his chin to the tabletop, and resumes his lustful gaze upon the apples and cheese.

“Oh …” Minna knows she should know that name. He's a noble-born, by his inflections, and ... slightly foreign. She flicks through her memory of banns and arls she’s met at Landsmeets for the past ten years: _Teagan ... Teagan Guerrin, Bann of Rainesfere (good cider!), vassal of older brother Arl Eamon (“I was born without smile muscles”) Guerrin of Redcliffe,_ _younger maternal uncle of ~~Prince~~ King Cailan, organizes usual Landsmeet hunting party for Cailan and all his fearless friends, known to buy ale for same at Gnawed Noble, either activity explains why Fergus and Ross like him, hasn’t spoken aloud at Landsmeet in … seven years,_ _Papa thinks he’s clever (possibly because hasn’t spoken aloud at a Landsmeet in seven years)._ “I – er. I apologize, Lord Teagan,” Minna glowers at Quiet Peg, who has joined Irminric in his unhelpful grinning. “I don’t know why I thought your name was Egan.”

Teagan rubs his thumb on a spot under his chin, at the edge of his beard and shrugs. “I can’t imagine, my Lady.”

Tack snorts and shifts, gently placing his head back in his mistress’ lap. She caresses his ears absentmindedly.

Irminric turns his unhelpful grinning to Teagan, ushering him to a seat at the table and pressing a mug of hot coffee into his hands. “I didn’t actually see you last night. Too busy watching the mage repacking Min’s insides.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic. There were no exterior entrails. I was just very … leaky.” Minna forces herself to keep the conversation as light as possible. And to smile. She feels Quiet Peg’s eyes assessing whether or not she’s too tired, or in too much pain. Minna knows if Quiet Peg thinks she’s had enough, the old dear will go haring after Morag or the mage healer, and they both need their rest. So Minna smiles at Teagan and notices that, unlike the portraits of their late sister, neither of the Guerrin men are much to look at. But of the two, Teagan is by far the more pleasant-looking. It might have something to do with the fact that Eamon always looks like he’s just been licking a druffalo’s nethers whenever he sees her at Landsmeets. Teagan, on the other hand, is smiling back at her. A very pleasant smile, actually. Kind eyes. Minna coughs lightly, trying not to wince at the pain. “Which reminds me: thank you for your presence of mind and excellent horsemanship, Lord Teagan. You surely saved my life, and I’m grateful.”

Teagan nods rather formally, but keeps smiling. “It was my honour, my Lady.”

Minna’s own smile falters. Her hands close around Tack’s ears. “I hope you slept well, Lord Teagan?

“Yes, but, please, I’m just Teagan, my Lady.”

“On the condition that you stop calling me ‘My Lady.’ My name is Minna.”

“As you wish, my La- er. Minna.”

Minna nods and smiles, brighter, at him. She tears some bread from the loaf in front of her and carefully hands the loaf to Teagan.

Tack happily snuffles up the bread his mistress offers him, avoiding Quiet Peg’s annoyed gaze.

* * *

 


	5. The King's Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Teagan's purpose is made clear.

* * *

The last thing Teagan wanted was to go to Highever. He’d tried telling that to Cailan weeks ago, when they were looking for the stag’s tracks on the streambank.

“Your Highness-“

“Uncle Teagan, really,” the young man frowned briefly.

“Cailan,” he conceded.

“Thank you.”

“I don’t like to be away from Rainesfere at this time of year. I wouldn’t be, except that your letter said it was urgent.”

“It is. You heard them at dinner last night.”

Teagan nodded. He’d arrived in Denerim yesterday afternoon with Cailan’s urgent dispatch in his pocket: _"Uncle Teagan, please come see me. Immediately. Speak to no-one else. Cailan."_ The dispatch rider arrived a few hours after the household had retired for the night, and had Teagan and Luthias on the road before sunup. He reported directly to Cailan after five days of hard riding and sleeping rough.

The palace was busy. It took an hour for two older squires and a little page in sweaty livery to find Cailan. For his part, Cailan seemed surprised at Teagan’s “sudden” appearance. Confused and annoyed, Teagan went along with it when Cailan installed him in a guest suite, insisted on a hunt the next morning, and invited him to a “cosy family meal” for the evening. Teagan then learned how radically his nephew’s idea of a “cosy family meal” differed from his own.

There had been food.

Perfectly good food, rendered indigestible by what was closer to a Landsmeet than a meal. Cailan and his new bride Anora were there. So was Eamon, but not Isolde; Loghain, Anora’s father was there, but not his wife, Lady Celia. Somewhere between the soup and afters, Anora and Loghain and Eamon began ruminating over “Cailan’s Problem with the Coastlands.” Cailan’s opinion had neither been solicited nor welcome. By the time the port came around, Teagan felt as though his stomach was knotted fire.

“I think at one point, they were actually calling it my _Problem with the Couslands_ ,” Cailan waited for the older man’s reaction.

“I thought I’d heard that.” Teagan tried to sound noncommittal. He abhorred politics. Governing his bannorn of Rainesfere, the little backwater that it was, was all he felt comfortable handling. At least in Rainesfere, many political problems actually did resolve when he repeatedly hit them with his sword. Denerim was increasingly not a place for a man like Teagan. For all the nobility’s insistence that they were Ferelden and not Orlesian, a distressing and increasing number of Ferelden’s nobility seemed to aspire to the Orlesian example. Smarm was replacing good manners. Plain-speaking was becoming a rare commodity.

In spite of his aversion to Denerim, Teagan did have the political acumen to understand that Eamon was encouraging Loghain’s suspicions about some sort of ‘scourge’ on the Coastlands because of a personal grudge against Bryce Cousland. It was petty and unworthy of Eamon.

Unfortunately, Teagan couldn’t think of any reason to doubt Loghain’s information that Bryce Cousland was arming more men in Highever. Loghain prized this sort of information. Even twenty years after winning Ferelden back from the Orlesians, the Hero of River Dane was still at war. The soldiers and scouts in Loghain's own private army would only report what they believed were facts to their general.

But Bryce Cousland raising an army _against Cailan_? Bryce didn't coast by on being the 'Hero of' any battle. He wasn't a 'Hero.' Bryce never denied that the Orlesians kicked his ass all over the Bannorn. Twice. Indeed, any 'renown' he might have was for surviving a series of increasingly brutal defeats. His later military successes were impressive to someone like Teagan, but they were all on the water, and all shared with Eleanor. Unfortunately, naval battles like Denerim Harbour seemed barely understood and quickly forgotten by most Fereldens. Except in the Coastlands, where the people turn to the sea for their livelihoods, and Bryce had spent the last two decades helping them rebuild and improve their simple lives. Teagan knew the people of Highever loved Bryce so dearly, that they were saying – as a misguided way of praising their teyrn – that Bryce, and not Cailan, should have been Maric’s successor. Even so. He flatly refused to believe that simple flattery from simple folk would turn the head of a staunch royalist like Bryce Cousland.

“Any idea why I should have a problem with the Couslands?”

“I haven’t heard anything.”

“But surely you’ve heard how Loghain is convinced that my father’s –” Cailan paused, took a deep breath.

Teagan nodded slightly and examined the undisturbed moss on a rock while his nephew mastered himself. In his experience, nothing about death is easy for the living. But it does have certainty. That certainty eventually forces those left behind to understand that death is final, and to say goodbye. Except when death isn’t certain. Teagan had no experience of what was surely a daily agony for those who love someone _lost, presumed dead_.

“Well,” Cailan took a deep breath and continued, “Loghain’s certain that it’s all an Orlesian plot. All of it. Annoyingly, he’s convinced that Highever generally, and the Couslands specifically, are somehow involved. The rumour you didn’t hear last night is that Bryce Cousland has a treasure trove of long-lost Ferelden riches tucked away somewhere - and that he's using it to pay off his Orlesian co-conspirators."

" _What?_ "

"Loghain isn't prone to flights of fancy."

"Then where did he find the butterfly wings?"

Cailan's laughter sounded brittle to Teagan's ears. "The way he's been going on, you'd think this was some smutty book set in Rivian, with saucy pirate wenches burying stolen booty under every other rock ... I've been laughing him off, but ..."

Teagan nodded, patient.

"But for the fact that my own grandmother was betrayed by nobles whom she trusted. But for the fact that I suspect she was _much_ more clever _and_ experienced than I am ... Uncle Teagan, I need to know. Ferelden can't afford for me to make my grandmother's mistake."

Teagan listened to his nephew - the king whose opinion none of his closest advisors, including his own consort, wanted - and understood why Cailan sent that urgent dispatch.

"I want _my_ instincts about the Couslands to be right. I can't imagine any Rebel betraying Ferelden's Crown, least of all Bryce Cousland. Andraste's ass, his grandfather died defending my great-grandfather at Lothering. And ... I _like_ the Couslands. Fergus is one of the closest friends I have who isn't somehow paid to be around me." Cailan scowled at a small green fish as it glinted along the stream. "But according to my own information, Bryce Cousland is having dealings with the mages of Kinloch Hold.”

“With mages? That is peculiar …” Teagan frowned in thought.

“Mages _are_ peculiar, Teagan.”

“Wait – how do you know that Bryce is dealing with mages?”

“Naturally,” Cailan raised his eyebrow and flashed his dimple at his uncle, “because I’m king.”

“Granted,” a smile threatened to overtake Teagan’s frown, “but I’m not as easily distracted as a certain ambassador’s daughter.”

Cailan sighed theatrically. “Fine: Oswyn told me, which is why nobody else knows anything about this.”

“Oswyn?”

“Bann Sighard’s son: blond, a head shorter than me, rather slight,” Cailan unhelpfully described.

Teagan flicked through his memory of bann’s sons he’d met at Landsmeets for the past fifteen-odd years and realized that Cailan had described half of them as boys, including Cailan himself.

“A danger only to himself when he’s armed,” Cailan prompted.

“Oh _him_.” That one was memorable. Three years ago, Cailan brought a handful of friends out to hunt. Oswyn distinguished himself by nearly slicing off his own foot with his own sword. Teagan had had no idea how it had happened in the first place - it was a hunting party of young men, not foolish boys, and Oswyn had seemed more careful than the rest. By the Maker’s Grace, Bann Fearchar’s grandsons were close enough to prevent Oswyn’s inadvertent amputation. He wasn’t ‘rather slight,’ he was outright scrawny.

“Oswyn’s a good sort,” Cailan continued fondly, “never minds when the mabari get excited and knock him on his ass.”

Which, Teagan suspected, would be all the time. He’d never seen a grown man so thoroughly ungainly. It was as though the Maker had taken Oswyn and simply stretched him to his adult height, without bothering to pad him with the muscle so typical of Ferelden men.

“His real saving grace is twofold: he’s uncommonly clever, and he’s quite good at explaining things without lording his cleverness over you. We play chess by correspondence.” Cailan paused long enough to seem pleased at the complete lack of surprise on his uncle’s face.

Teagan simply nodded at him to continue.

“In his last move, he mentioned that Highever’s dispatch riders must know the length and breadth of Ferelden well enough that I should probably commission a better map of the country. Not a bad idea. But he also mentioned that Bryce’s man seemed jumpy. Being a hospitable fellow, Oswyn plied him with something from Dragon’s Peak’s venerable cellars and discovered that this messenger was carrying a “mighty sum” to Denerim’s Chantry, and that it felt at least as heavy as whatever his brother was delivering to Kinloch Hold.” Cailan grinned broadly. “Oswyn is disinclined to share this information freely. He says it's too easy for interesting facts to birth vicious gossip. But he shared it with me because he says it "feels like a puzzle piece," and he knows I like these sorts of puzzles. So … based on Oswyn's interesting fact, and the ruminations we were both subjected to last night, what do you think?”

Teagan watched his nephew thoughtfully. This is how their private hunting trips often go. Two quarries: one in the forest and the other Cailan brings with them. On a good day, they bag both.

“Cailan, I still don’t think anybody has the whole of the story. Bryce Cousland would no sooner form designs against you or your father than he would put on a dress and dance the Remigold.”

“I’d pay to see that,” Cailan laughed.

“So would I, but I don’t think there’s enough liquor in Denerim for us to realize that dream.”

“Maybe we’ll get lucky when we’re in Highever: Bryce and Eleanor issued the Royal Newlyweds an invitation to visit and watch some sort of local festival. We’ll be there in a month and a half.”

“Ah. So this all grew out of Highever's invitation? The invitation and timing ... it is appropriate for a new king to tour. It's appropriate for a newly-married king to tour with his wife. But Loghain wants _someone_ to blame for Maric, and so he sends his soldier of _Gwaren_ into _Highever_ on a reconnaissance mission?”

"I caught that, too. Seemed a bit rude, risking a civil war without even asking me if I'd like one."

"I don't fancy Loghain's chances if he tries that little trick in the Bannorn. He's either mad, or utterly convinced of this danger."

Cailan shrugs. “Can't it be both? He's been picking at this trip like it’s a tick in his smallclothes. He’s convinced of an Orlesian plot. Probably several plots. And a colluded conspiracy in league with a cabal.”

Teagan smirked and nodded, and began to move off. He’d picked up the stag’s trail again. “It could just be that the Coastlands are Ferelden’s border on the Waking Sea, and the teyrnir of Highever has two major ports. His worries don't end at the Orlesians. There's the Raiders to consider. He wouldn't be worthy of being teyrn if he couldn't defend the place. If I had pockets as deep as Bryce Cousland, with jewels like Highever and Amaranthine to protect, I’d raise an army for Rainesfere and guard my patch of southwestern border just as fiercely. ... But that still doesn’t explain the large sums to the mages and the Chantry.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Cailan pronounced with an air of finality.

Caught off-guard, Teagan turned – obliterating the stag’s tracks – and stared at his nephew. “Why?”

“Because I’m sending you to find out.”

“Why me? Why not send an agent?”

“Because I want you to be my agent.” Cailan said it so naturally, he could have been talking about the fine weather.

“But I'm not - Cailan, you need an agent who is subtle. An assassin, if necessary. I'm hardly such an agent.”

“Teagan, I trust you. Unlike any other possible agent. I know you’ll report to me first, and not Anora or Loghain or even Eamon. Unlike any other possible agent. You’re clever and honest. Unlike any other possible agent."

“Your friend Oswyn is clever.”

“And honest. But he’s also likely to blow away in a strong wind,” Cailan laughed. “You, on the other hand, have a perfectly good brain and more than enough brawn to handle yourself if things get rough. Also, you admit when you’re mistaken. Promptly. That’s a rare and vital quality, especially for this. You’re practically a mute at the Landsmeet, so nobody – including, I suspect, the affable Teyrn Bryce – has any strong opinions about you. And since you’re my uncle, if you wanted to deliver a few barrels of that wonderful Rainesfere cider in advance of my visit, nobody would think much of it.”

“I could just send the barrels,” Teagan offered dryly.

“What, and pass up the chance to go hunting with Bryce and Fergus? Perhaps drum up some trade for Rainesfere and her cider in a bustling port town? … Find out if Bryce's cloistered daughter knows any saucy sea shanties?”

Teagan snorts, “Cailan, be serious.”

“I am. They’re all wonderful excuses for you to go and tarry. Particularly the girl. Unless she spits. All wonderful excuses until you can entangle yourself in whatever it is that sparked these rumours of Orlesian conspiracies and long-lost Ferelden treasure hoards. If all it turns out to be is a wine merchant with a lisp and a coin that pre-dates the Occupation, I still want to know.”

“Whose idea was this?”

“Oh, Anora’s.”

Teagan stared at his nephew. He navigates his world by relying on certain mental landmarks: the passing of the seasons, the daily path of the sun in the sky, the importance of duty and honour, and the clear knowledge that Anora Mac Tir has little use for him. “You mean to tell me –“

Cailan smirked. “She thinks it was her idea. Who am I to disabuse her? And because _he_ thinks it’s _her_ idea, Loghain has declared it to be flawless, Uncle Eamon has already come to terms with it, and I’m free to go hunting with you. Bring a man or two of your own up to Highever, if you can. Now I think of it, Anora should also get the idea to lean on Eamon a little, don’t you think? I expect Redcliffe will be delighted to send a number of its stout knights to aid your men in Rainesfere’s harvest and defense until your return.”

“Until I re – how long is this supposed to take me?”

Cailan shrugged casually. “It’s six weeks before we arrive for the festival, and the duration of the festival, however long that is … so two months, two and a half … something like that.”

 _Two and a half months. Half a season neglecting Rainesfere and playing lordling while imposing myself on the hospitality of the very man I have to spy on. Maker’s balls, this is sordid._ “I can’t dissuade you, can I?”

“No, Uncle, I’m sorry. I want someone I trust.”

* * *

 


	6. Convalescent Diamondback (TW: torture mentioned)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Teagan almost loses his foot but wins a pile of garbage.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING: Torture and mutilation briefly described. This is all canon-typical, but it's grislier than previous chapters in this work.

* * *

Fergus huffs, opening the kitchen door with the firkin in his arms. He stands in the doorway, breathing in the smell of fresh bread and coffee, staring in and letting his weary eyes adjust to the dimmer light. Three forms are sitting at the kitchen table. A mabari is snoring under it.

“Fergus!” calls Minna’s voice, “join us!” A deck of playing cards riffles from the direction of her voice.

Fergus grins and steps through, relieved to hear his little sister’s voice so clear and strong. “Ross owes Heronson a sovereign! Ross said you’d be drinking. Heronson said cards,” he pauses, his voice suddenly stuck in his throat. He sees her now: pale as driftwood. Last night, he thought he’d handed her corpse up to Teagan.

This morning, driftwood-pale is a miracle.

Fergus abandons the small cask on a stand near the door, strides over to her, wraps his arms around her narrow, fur-encased shoulders and kisses her on the top her curly head. She doesn’t squirm or protest, only gently pats his arms. Her movements are too spare. Too careful. _Maker, she’s still hurting_. Fergus swallows against the lump in his throat and sees Teagan through his watery eyes, sitting in the chair next to Minna.

Teagan simply nods at Fergus and smiles reassuringly.

Fergus blinks hard, releasing Minna from his embrace. He swings her chair from the table, crouches in front of her, pressing his forehead to hers. She presses back, like she always has. Unwelcome shadow. Dessert raider. Chair-kicker. Competitor. Ink-spiller. Co-conspirator. Secret-keeper. Matchmaker. Alibi-giver. Now saviour. His little sister. When he finally speaks, half his voice is still firmly stuck in his throat. “Min, what possessed you?"

* * *

_The fierce and dragon-helmed, bow high, the skirmisher - Minna Cousland - steers her spirited mare into Highever's line._ _Another arrow already nocked, she faces their would-be ambushers and screams._

_Furious._

_Glorious._

_Shoots the only man wearing a crest through the throat._ _He pisses himself as he drops, face-first onto the rocky ground._

_A flash of lightning._

_The ambushers' faces betray their terror._ _Their leader gone._ _Their surprise gone._ _Their choices gone._ _They charge down on Highever's patrol._

_Fergus booms orders to the company._ _The men of Highever roar._

_Charge._

_Ross' horn blasts against thunder._

_Teagan barks to his own men. Rainesfere will guard Highever's left flank, against the shadowed cave._

_Lightning._

_First crunch of combat._

_Fergus' spear loosed._

_Ross to his cousin, bloodied sword raised._

_Tack rips the throat from an ambusher and spits it out beside his useless bow._ _Falls upon another bowman._

_Nostrils fill with the tang of blood and metal, fear and sweat._

_The salt spray._ _Their backs to the sea._

Maker, the tide’s coming in!

_Luthias snorts, sloshing through salt water._ _Teagan’s shield up, against arrows from above, he slashes underneath, cutting spearmen down._

_A horse screams._

_Not Luthias._

_Up ahead._

_The mare._ _Pierced between enemy spearmen._ _They pull her down._ _She screams._ _Rears._ _Kicks one spearman in the face._ _He drops, his skull emptying onto the beach._ _The mare falls._

_Minna thrown clear._ _She rolls._ _Twin blades, too fast to see, avenging the mare in a whirl of blood._

_Flash._

_Teagan urges Luthias ahead. Away from the tide._ _Toward the cliff. Narrow ground. Shrinking. But dry._

_Against the cliff, ambushers surge against Fergus. He_ _parries, slices, tramples them with his horse._

_Ross on the ground. Uninjured. Skewers two with their own spear._

_Flash._

_Fergus’ horse - eyes wild - rears._

_Fergus thrown._ _Dazed._

_Teagan urges Luthias over ambushers, toward Fergus._ _They swarm. He slashes. Luthias tramples._

_Flash._

_Ross stands over Fergus._ _Bellowing defiance._

_Fergus regains his feet._

_Flash._

_Ambusher. Spear ready for Ross' back._

_Minna screams. Runs. Knocks Ross clear._

_Ambusher drives his spear into Minna._

_Flash._

_The bastard is actually grinning._

_Teagan swings Luthias about, sword high._ _Lops the grinning bastard's head from his shoulders._

* * *

“The game,” Minna announces archly, “is Diamondback.” Her nimble, tapered fingers shuffle the cards with alarming fluidity. She deals them all into the game, whether they want to or no.

Teagan doesn't. He prefers to avoid cards. And gambling. He tries, politely, to explain this, but is silenced as soon as she smiles at him. A remarkable smile. It begins in her large, moss-coloured eyes: warmth like spring sunlight spreading across her sweet, open face, taking every freckle along with it, until he feels himself smiling back at her. How had he ever mistaken her for a boy?

“Teagan, this is only a friendly. We’re just playing for caps.” Minna Cousland absolutely does not spit.

“Caps?”

“Whatever worthless thingamies accumulate in your pockets. C’mon, turn ‘em out. I’ve already dealt you in.” 

Teagan’s pockets are not his own, but before he points this out, Fergus deposits a fistful of cobnut shells in front of him. “Ah. Thank you.”

Fergus smirks at Irminric, who chuckles. Fergus’ pile looks like broken wax seals, Irminric’s is fingernail-sized cork stoppers.

Teagan takes up his cards and assesses his hand. It looks like cards. He has no idea. But Minna’s husky voice draws him as much as her smile. Even if he’s not paying attention to what she’s saying. _Holy Blazes, pay attention._

“- Oswyn suggested the northwestern watchtower, since we’ve all been planning to observe Satina before the Tears. I was using the old spy glass Granda gave me … Actually, isn’t there a group watching at Kinloch Hold, Irminric?”

“Ser Rowan might know. I don’t serve in a Circle.”

“You don’t?”

“No, I hunt maleficar and apostates."

"But isn’t that dangerous?” Minna stares, eyes wide, at Irminric.

Irminric stares back at Minna.

Fergus grins and slowly shakes his head from behind his cards.

“Min, maleficar are dangerous,” Irminric says calmly, like he’d explain to his mother or a favourite auntie, “I serve the Maker by protecting the innocent. And, right now, I’m not the one with holes in my side.”

“Point taken.” She fiddles with her cards. “Only, please be careful.”

“I take every precaution.”

Appeased, Minna nods and pushes her hair out of her eyes. It’s riotously curly and nut-brown, but shot through with something else: too dark for gold, but not quite red.

The colour reminds Teagan of something he can't place. He plays the wrong card.

Fergus wins the hand.

“- so instead of observing the little moon, I found myself watching a lantern signalling on Overlook’s headland –“

Fergus frowns. “We didn’t see a signal.” He claims the table’s detritus as his winnings.

“If you’d been watching for smugglers sheltering in Eanraig’s Cave, you wouldn’t. The rocks above overhang the lower road, except at the switchback.”

“It’s not a big overhang.”

“True. But from where I was on the tower, I could see that somebody above you knew Eremon’s Flashcode and was using it to signal anybody high enough to see.” Minna frowns slightly. The  wrinkle between her eyebrows deepens. She smoothly deals another round with hands that barely tremble. Her breathing is slow and deep. Deliberate. Her jaw clenches.

Teagan saw her like this last night. She needs to keep talking. He takes his hand and studies it. Still cards. “What did this signal say, my La-er. Minna.”

Minna smiles, “Teagan, I promise the sky won’t rip open if you just call me Minna.”

Irminric and Fergus grin most unhelpfully.

“As you say. What did the signal say, _Minna_?”

“Just one word: HERE, over and over. And then I noticed the funny clouds.”

“The funny clouds?”

She nods. “A great cluster of Maker’s Pearls. Moving fast, against the wind and against the air.”

Fergus looks over from his cards. “That storm did come on suddenly, but … Min, it was dark. Why do you think they were Maker’s Pearls?”

“Two full moons in the sky, turnip.”

“But the air wasn’t dropping last night.”

“ _That’s_ why they were _funny_.” Minna frowns at her brother, then turns to Teagan and Irminric. “Actual Maker’s Pearls need _dropping_ air and _summer_ winds blowing _toward_ the shore. Last night, the air was steady, harvest is upon us and the wind was blowing off, to the west. The clouds I saw last night looked like Maker’s Pearls. They were low to the ground like Maker’s Pearls. But they shouldn’t have been Maker’s Pearls.”

Irminric drops his cards (possibly a good hand) on top of his pile of pocket garbage. “And you’re sure the Flashcode you saw said HERE?”

Minna nods soberly and tosses a few walnut shells into the middle of the table.

“Who would know this Flashcode?” Teagan plays a face card and drops a handful of cobnut shells on top of the walnut shells.

Irminric shrugs, “it’s almost a point of honour that all the Eremons know it. As would anyone who ever served with my grandfather … the Flashcode survived White River. The survivors used it for the duration. The Orlesians never seemed to understand it.”

Fergus plays another card and matches Teagan’s bet with a handful of wax crumbs. “Both our parents, Uncle Evan and Auntie Morag, Howe … oh, and Uncle Bryland, but he’s in South Reach. Their knights and seneschals. Possibly their more clever squires and pages. Anyway, it’s well-enough known that smugglers don’t dare use it for direct messages.”

“Not until now,” Minna scowls at her last card and snaps it onto the table.

Irminric pushes the miniature midden toward Teagan. Apparently, he’s won the hand.

“What would cause smugglers to be so direct with this Flashcode?” Teagan absentmindedly sorts his winnings into four smaller piles of equally worthless rubbish.

“If they had someone on-hire who didn’t know whole code, they could learn a few words in under an hour. Just enough to follow directions – “stop,” “go,” “here,” “run.” Not much more an apostate would need.”

“You suspect mages?”

“I didn’t, until Min described the stormclouds. But this wouldn’t be the work of a Circle mage. It’s the work of maleficar.”

Minna laces her fingers over the deck of cards and listens to the men discuss strategy. Her hands are shaking more.

Teagan gently rouses the sleeping mabari under the table with the toe of his borrowed boot.

Tack grips Teagan’s foot in his mouth. Teagan feels, rather than hears, the growl travelling along his leg.

_Maker’s breath, but they’re a obstinate lot here._ Teagan calmly slips his hand under the table and points at Minna, hoping the contrary beast is paying attention.

Tack releases Teagan's foot, then pushes his head onto Minna’s lap. She listens to the men discussing strategy while caressing Tack's ears. Her hands stop shaking.

Tack looks up at Teagan and winks.

* * *

  

> **BOX: seventeen (17)**
> 
> **BOX CONTAINS: letters, four (4) written by SMC between 8:24 and 8:25 Blessed.**
> 
> **GENERAL MATERIAL DESIGNATION: ink on parchment**

> **NOTES:**
> 
>   * **Returned by Sister Dorothea of the Verchiel Chantry of Orlais, 3 Guardian, 9:18 Dragon.**
>   * **Received by Mother Mallol, chaplain of Cousland Castle, 3 Guardian, 9:18 Dragon.**
>   * **Catalogued by Brother Aldous of Highever, Chantry scholar, 20 Cloudreach, 9:18 Dragon.**
> 

> 
> **RESTRICTIONS ON ACCESS: condition poor. DO NOT REMOVE.**
> 
> My Dearest,
> 
> I pray to the Maker that this letter finds you quickly, and in good health.
> 
> Do not come home. The castle is overrun. It still flies the family colours, but this is a lie: they are waiting for you, Dearest.
> 
> Reville's chevaliers have a strangle hold on Highever.
> 
> They make examples of the simple folk who resist by gibbeting them at low tide, like pirates. We have been busy with pyres and prayers since the troops arrived, because these horrid executions do not deter rebellion among ordinary Fereldens. They are stout and contrary and I am proud of them, even as I fear for them. I pray to the Maker for the safety of the rebels who persist, but with every new gibbet I see bobbing at high tide, I am more convinced that my work was inspired by the Maker. That is why I have split my precious hoard into caches.
> 
> For the nobility, the chevaliers have something worse than death: fear. Two weeks ago, young Fearchar's excellent father was finally captured and taken into the castle. His body appeared in Highever's market square yesterday morning: stretched on a tenter, covered in filth and festering wounds and utterly unmanned. The chevaliers promise the same treatment for any noble who dares to foster rebellion. Thus fear of torture and death now blinds the nobility to their duty. I am ashamed of them. They could fight Reville's troops with their own. Instead, they leave the risks and losses of rebellion to the very people whom they are sworn to protect.
> 
> I pray that the Maker gathers the rebels and Bann Saigart to His side. I hope that the Maker will look with indulgence upon all of Saigart's many faults, as he often proved them to be virtues as well.
> 
> My Dearest, it is your duty to free Highever.
> 
> This tyranny cannot last. It will devastate, but it will not last.
> 
> Do not come home.
> 
> Find allies. To my knowledge, Fearchar is still sought by the chevaliers. I pray to the Maker for his continued safety. I told him all I knew of Lothering. Look for him. He has ideas.
> 
> Rise up.
> 
> I know I will not live long enough to help rebuild. This disappoints me, but it is only common sense. I am a very old woman, after all. My only regret is that the trove will remain scattered. Tell your children, Dearest. I know you are young, but one day, Maker willing, you will have children. Teach them what they will need to know to recover the trove. When Ferelden rebuilds, it will be sorely needed. Its value is beyond worth.
> 
> Remember the Canticle of Benedictions. My favourite verse is still 4:10. If you allow it, it will comfort you as you fight your way through this storm.
> 
> My Dearest, do not look for another letter from me. Only know that I always hold you in my heart. However my end is to be, I shall rejoice to be gathered to the Maker's side. Do not rush to join us. You have much living to do and an entire world upon which to make your mark.
> 
> With all my love and prayers,
> 
> \- Minna 

* * *

The Enchanter’s melodic voice and the musty, herby smell of elfroot-and-something-else poultice are cut off by the heavy wooden door to the kitchen clunking shut.

Fergus leans against a barrel next to the door, squinting against the sunlight.

Teagan breathes deep, filling his lungs with the cold, tangy air blowing in from the Waking Sea. He joins Fergus, leaning against a neighbouring barrel, closing his eyes against the sparse, rocky landscape. The sunlight soaks into his sore body. “First smugglers. Now maleficar.”

 

“Now you know why the drinking on the Coastlands is so fierce.”

“What happened after I left?”

“A few of the men got knocked about, but nobody died. Of course, the same isn’t true of the smugglers. We pinned what was left of the ambushers against the cliff and finished them in short order. Your men did famously. If they’re willing, I’d appreciate it if they’d swap a few of their tricks with Ser Gilmore and my sergeants while you’re here.”

“Of course.”

“Thank you. After we were done with the ambushers, we went into Eanraig’s Cave and found the smugglers and their …” Fergus snorts, disgusted.

“What were they smuggling?”

“People. The bastards were slavers."

"Maker’s balls, that’s sordid.”

“It’s also rare, here. When Father returned to Highever, he patrolled the coast even before he could officially reclaim his seat. Over the years, would-be slavers have learned that Fereldens are very happy to purchase their continued freedom with slavers' blood.” 

Teagan nods, approving. Perhaps Highever isn’t so different from Rainesfere, after all.

“But when we got back from Cailan’s coronation, we started hearing rumours. Folk going missing. I made inquiries: between the taverns and brothels and crafthouses, there might be forty people missing from Highever the town. Minna followed her nose to Amaranthine. By her reckoning, another fifty are missing from the town, and another ten from the arling. Maker only knows what Rendon Howe will do if he finds out she’s been poking around on his patch.”

“Wouldn’t Arl Howe be grateful to his teyrn for help?” Teagan realizes how absurd this sounds the moment it’s out of his mouth. Rendon Howe has the personality of a wasp.

Fergus shrugs. “It’s unlikely he’s given these disappearances much thought. He might not even know about them. Y'see, none of the noble houses in the teyrnir have been affected in any way.”

“They will be affected if somebody’s cook gets snatched.”

Fergus snorts and nods.

“As it stands, Howe is still Teyrn Bryce’s _vassal_. If your Lord Father sends you and Ross to hunt slavers in the rose garden at Vigil’s Keep, he’s within his rights. If Howe doesn't like it, he can eat worms.”

“Arlessa Elaine would never consent - to a garden raid, I mean. I'm fairly sure she'd just let Rendon eat the worms.”

“Oh, the _arlessa_. In that case, I’d send your sister. She’s very …”

“Insolent?” Fergus offers, his voice cool and casual. “Stroppy? Fickle?”

Teagan simply shrugs. “Bright. Brave. True.”

Fergus sighs. After a moment, he nods. “She is. Forgive me, Teagan. In all this talk of the Howes, I’d forgotten you.”

“I’m famously forgettable.”

Fergus snorts. “Hardly. Remember when you took me and Cailan for our first ales at the Gnawed Noble? We were fourteen and full of shit.”

Teagan grins and nods.

“I told my father about that ale,” Fergus says quietly.

Teagan certainly hadn’t. The boys wouldn’t learn anything from their man-to-man if he tattled to their fathers like a pinch-faced governess. Surely, at fourteen, a boy decided what sort of man he wanted to become. They'd had the benefit of numerous examples, particularly their own fathers, and were now both fine men.

“He told me to heed your counsel.”

Teagan turns his head and stares at the younger man. _Counsel?_

“Far too frequently, my little sister takes it on the chin for being who she is. Even from those who’ve claimed to love her. But I should never have assumed that you – of all people – meant to disparage her. Please, forgive me.”

Teagan shakes his head, “There’s nothing to forgive.”

“There is,” Fergus insists, “It’s just, when it comes to Minna…”

Teagan shakes his head. “I had a sister.” Her hair was dark, but she was always bright with him. She cut apples into smiles for him to eat. She sang with Mother. She stayed in Ferelden, with Father, to fight, while he was taken across the Waking Sea, with Mother and Eamon, to grow up. _At her side_ , Maric won Ferelden’s freedom. She became his Queen, bore Cailan and died all before Teagan ever returned. But he’d had a sister. “I understand.”

* * *

 


	7. Wet the Baby's Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which wee drams are consumed and Morag gets pushy.

* * *

Nobles and commoners alike, the people of the Coastlands blaspheme constantly.

And drink past excess.

And gamble about and for almost everything.

And quarrel. Even and _especially_ when they aren’t drinking or gambling.

In fact, they tend to give a rather poor first impression. But Irminric knows better: he’s one of them. Even though he’s devoted his life to the Maker and the Order, he still knows when the tide goes out. Even in the middle of the Bannorn, surrounded by hayricks.

Perhaps that’s why Irminric finds Knight-Corporal Rowan’s confusion so droll. She’s from Elmridge, in the far South, where magic mainly serves man by locking itself away in the tower on Lake Calenhad. Here, on the Storm Coast, the midwife won’t rest easy until Templar and mage alike share a wee dram.

“What’s this about?” Rowan whispers, squinting in the morning sunlight.

Senior Enchanter Wynne shields her eyes and smiles. Irminric knows she’s been outside the Circle for these sorts of field trips before. “It’s called ‘wetting the baby’s head,’” she explains gently, “Lady Morag and Lord Evan wish to thank us-”

“Surely, we need no thanks for service to the Maker,” the Knight-Corporal insists.

“I agree, but it’s nice to be thanked all the same. Besides,” Senior Enchanter Wynne presses, “it’s considered very good luck for the family to host us for just this one drink.”

“It’s true, Knight-Coroporal.”

“But, ser, drinking while on duty?”

“Oh, Ser Rowan, it won’t be very much.” Senior Enchanter Wynne sounds so confident of that. It’s just as well the Order doesn’t insist on detailed reports for these sorts of visits. Irminric isn’t sure how he’d write them.

“Ser?”

“Ordinarily, the drinks poured for this custom are, thankfully, modest. They are also the finest the household can offer.” Irminric takes a deep breath. _Best to warn them both. Now._ “But that said, Lord Evan’s ‘wee dram’ will probably be two fingers thick. Drink slowly.”

Moments later, Irminric discovers he’s wrong: the Mac Eanraig ‘wee dram’ is _three_ fingers thick. He also discovers that Knight-Corporal Rowan can only handle her whisky if she’s propped up against a wall.

The younger Templar’s cheeks are flushed and she’s still tearing from the toast. “Bit like fire, isn’t it?”

Irminric chuckles and pours a little water from his canteen into her cup and Senior Enchanter Wynne’s. “Toasting for birth and death are done neat. But if you add a splash of water, it quenches a bit of the fire and lets the flavours bloom.”

Knight-Corporal Rowan smiles blearily. She probably can’t taste much of anything, anymore.

Senior Enchanter Wynne, however, handles her drink far better than the Knight-Corporal. “I certainly didn’t think I’d cap the morning with Highever whisky. Oh my, what a treat.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Irminric chuckles, “because I suspect Minna Cousland will be sending a barrel of the stuff to the Circle in time for Satinalia.”

“What? Why?” Wynne smacks her lips a little, savouring the liquor. Irminric wonders if she originally hailed from the Coastlands. He’ll have to ask.

“In thanks for her continued good health.”

“But the Circle has already been paid.”

"For your assistance to Lady Morag."

"Now really, we were already here. The girl's _life_ was at stake."

“I thought it was nice to be thanked?”

“It is, but … a barrel of liquid gold? Surely, that’s _excessive_?”

Irminric shrugs, glad to see his sister’s favourite sparring partner sitting on top of a barrel and singing along with her kinsmen. “Minna’s the sort of girl who thanks. She’s also the sort of girl who can turn a horseshoe into a house, so don’t worry about ‘excessive.’ If she thinks the Tower deserves a barrel of Highever’s finest, then you do.”

Knight-Corporal Rowan hiccups.

* * *

On her barrel perch, Minna nurses her wee dram. It feels strange to not have pain chewing on her side, but she finds she can cope. Watching her kinsmen celebrate warms her heart while the stone wall warms her back.

After the night he’s had, Ross is starting to look as grizzled as his father. She wonders if he’ll drop soon, but then her cousin yanks Teagan into a bear hug so tight, the bann disappears underneath Ross’ red curls and bearskin-covered shoulders. He resurfaces with Fergus’ friendly arm around his neck.

On the other side of the doorway, Mistress Peg keeps Ser Rowan and Mistress Wynne safe from the rowdy Coastlanders. Irminric stands with his comrades - he knows the local customs, but he’s nursing his drink and playing for time.

Minna smirks. Uncle Evan draws closer and all of her kinsmen goad Teagan into downing the rest of his wee dram in a single go - **_Idiot!_** \- only to sputter when the fire he’s swallowed claws at his throat. On cue, the three Coastlanders pound him on the back with words of genuine concern and jokes of absolute filth. Tack dances around the men, barking. From the outside, they resemble a pile of month-old mabari pups.

“ _Maker’s balls_ , watch your language,” protests Auntie Morag, fluttering around the pile like an indignant plover, finally retreating to Minna’s side.

“I think it’s mostly nerves,” Minna offers, “post-battle piss-up and all that.” She glances at her cup. _Uncle Evan pours as heavy as Granda ever did. It's a wonder we don't all go blind.  
_

“You don’t have nerves.”

“Fresh out.” Minna sings along with Uncle Evan’s marginally intelligible and thankfully-abridged refrain for _Maid of Highever_ in a grossly inappropriate key.

“Anyway, this isn’t supposed to be a _piss-up_ ,” Auntie Morag huffs, nostrils flaring, “it’s a toast to Heather and the baby.”

“I don’t think they mind. It’s not like any of _that lot_ would be any help around little ones,” Minna drinks, rolling a mouthful of whisky fire along her tongue. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather I stayed?”

The dragonish look disappears from Auntie Morag’s face and she pats Minna’s knee. “Pup, you’re always welcome. But your Papa wants you home, to say nothing of your Mama. If you can manage the ride today, best off with the daylight.”

Minna nods. “If Teagan can walk straight after they’re done with him, I’ll believe he can ride.”

“Hm. Cuts a fine figure, doesn’t he?”

“Huh?”

Auntie Morag levels a stare up at Minna and whispers, “Minna Cousland, you’re the only archer I’ve ever met that doesn’t _look_.”

“At _what_ ,” Minna hisses back, dreading this sudden turn to the conversation, and unsure how to extricate herself.

“At the _bann_! Pup, he’s unattached.”

“Perhaps he _prefers_ to be unattached.” Minna swallows another mouthful of whisky. Perhaps if she can make her head wooly, this conversation won’t annoy her so much.

“ _Fine_.”

Minna braces herself. ‘ _Fine_ ’ is never the end with Auntie Morag.

“Just because he’s not a hatchet-faced Howe-”

“You like Nate.”

“I _did_.”

In the middle of the yard, Tack howls and the men roar. They’ve pulled Irminric into the scrum. There will be at least one more rousing chorus of something completely unintelligible before Minna will be able to assess Teagan’s road-worthiness. _I bet even if he’s minced, he could still keep his seat on that black Forder of his._

“Anyway, two years is enough time spent sulking.”

“Auntie, I am not sulking.”

“No, of course not. Every twenty-year-old girl I know spends all the hours the Maker sends in study. Or in the training yard. Or on patrol.”

Minna scowls at the whisky sloshing around in her cup.

“Maker’s mercy, girl! That man - that young, unattached man - _saved your life_ because he’s clever enough to keep thinking during a crisis. Surely, that deserves a once-over.”

Minna swallows another mouthful of whisky and sings along to the unintelligible refrain the men are barking. To satisfy her pushy aunt whose stubbornness shames all mabari, she gives Teagan a once-over. “He’s…” _All sharp angles_. Arched eyebrows, high cheekbones, gaunt cheeks, a hawk nose. Even his eyes are sharp. They pierce. In his armour, he looks like he would be fast and fierce in battle. And even with his brown hair ruffled, he looks … Minna decides on ‘elegant.’

“He’s…” prompts Auntie Morag.

Minna shrugs.

Auntie Morag snorts, frustrated, and scurries over to the scrum of men and mabari. Probably to stop them before they begin another tuneless attempt at something loud.

Minna tests her side. It’ll pinch for a while, but she won’t have to miss any training. She realizes that she’s never actually seen an elegant man before. It’s not just that he’s tall and angular. Oswyn’s tall and angular, but he could never be described as _elegant_. Strange, she’d never thought that _elegant_ and _feminine_ were separate ideas.

But now they are.

Mistress Peg, for example, is tall and angular and easily _elegant_ but also _feminine_. It’s in her bearing as she crosses the yard to the scrum. In her long, gnarled hands as they take Teagan’s face between them and smooth his hair down. Her face may be as wizened as an apple in Cloudreach, but it’s elegant. Her black eyes are bright as she grins at Teagan, staring into his. And kisses him first on his forehead, then full on his mouth.

Teagan stares, dumbstruck.

Minna’s sure he’s sober enough to ride now.

Ross and Fergus both hoot with laughter, undeterred by Auntie Morag’s open-handed slaps on their backs: first Ross, then Fergus, then Ross again. Twice. She’d slap their heads, but she hasn’t been able to reach those for ten years.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello out there! I'm so sorry for the delay, but my December was largely spent in the throes of a massive technical crisis.
> 
> Okay, it was hardly Y2K, but my computer did die. Not only did this keep me offline, but it destroyed all my notes and drafts for this particular work. Among many other things!
> 
> So ... because Chapter 7 is slow to get out (on account of all the mental backtracking I've been doing), I've decided to break it into smaller chunks. I hope this will be/was a good read for you.
> 
> Don't be shy about leaving a kudos or a comment. I see your hit count, which is cool, but I love feedback.
> 
> The next installment is already in the hopper.


	8. Red Jenny Makes Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Minna rides a standing horse backward and turns Teagan into a mule.

* * *

Even with his head still slightly glazed with whisky, Teagan knows those aren’t Alamarri cairns.

Alamarri cairns are straight, cylindrical affairs built from thousands of stones knapped into thin, flat similarity. The work of scores of skilled hands over several years. These, however, are essentially tall, flat slabs of granite propped up by hundreds of moss-covered rocks ranging in size from firkins to turnips. They’re the work of a dozen dedicated men and might have taken a season to build.  
  
There are words carved into the granite. Hundreds of names and dates. From his vantage atop Luthias, Teagan sees them clearly. Memorials such as these litter the Bannorn. After fifteen years of Landsmeets, he knows the contents of every such marker on the long track between Redcliffe and Denerim.  
  
“Granda built them,” Minna offers, waving at the cairns as they pass.  
  
Teagan watches his guide, feeling vaguely redeemed: fully armed and armoured underneath layers of blue-black leather, there is little to suggest Minna Cousland is a woman. It’s the lines - especially the exaggerated, spiky silhouette of the pauldrons - that describes the body of a shorter, stouter warrior. A male warrior. Indeed, were it not for the curly wisps escaping the twisted braids wrapping her bare head, Teagan would be completely justified in mistaking her for a boy.  
  
Tack trots easily between Luthias and Minna’s grey gelding. The mabari’s tongue lolls out of his mouth, fluttering like a pink scarf in the autumn breeze.  
  
“- after King Maric’s coronation, with some of his old crew. He once told me he thought building them would make him feel better, but it didn’t.”  
  
“What did?”  
  
She shrugs, sort of. Her replacement armour squeaks, suggesting a shrug. “Ross’ birth. Then Fergus’ and mine. Helping Papa fix the harbours. Imposing pilotage. Especially on the Orlesians - he knew the power of coin in the right hands. Teaching us all about the sea and the stars. Watching us learn things he never really knew …” She fidgets with her thumb-ring.  
  
“Like archery?”  
  
She nods up at him, the shorter rider on the shorter horse. “When he heard I was practising from crow’s nests and horseback, I started getting presents. He commissioned this for my eighteenth birthday. Before he died.” She twists her thumb-ring from her draw-hand and passes it over to him.  
  
Teagan carefully turns it over in his hand. Serpentstone. Likely mined from a nearby vein. Exquisite craftsmanship. A week ago, Teagan overheard something about Minna’s upcoming birthday. Fearchar’s funeral was in the summer - an uncharacteristically cloudless day. This is more than equipment to Minna. It’s clear that was Fearchar’s intent: the lustrous yellow serpentstone pad is engraved with the seven-pointed Mac Eanraig Star set inside the Cousland Laurels. This little masterpiece could only ever belong to one archer in the world.  
  
His own thumb-ring could be anybody's: simple leather, bought in Ansburg with carefully saved pocket money and now preserved in a box in his wardrobe in Rainesfere.  
  
Teagan draws Luthias to a halt.  
  
Minna frowns in confusion, but does the same with her grey gelding. “What’s …”  
  
Tack sighs heavily and theatrically plunks himself on the trail between the two horses.  
  
“I didn't want to risk dropping such a cherished gift.” He reaches across and passes her thumb-ring back to her, placing it directly on her open palm.  
  
Minna smiles her thanks and quickly twists it back onto her draw-hand.  
  
They continue along the stony track with Tack trotting between Luthias and the grey gelding. Through the thick pine trees, the Waking Sea toys with flotsam caught among the rocks of the Storm Coast.  
  
Teagan tries not to watch Minna’s hands. Fingernails pared short. Tapered fingers, calloused from years of archery and card-playing and holding her quill in a death-grip. Better suited to a soldier than her reputation as the teyrn’s cloistered daughter.

_She's hardly cloistered._

_She's certainly capable._

_So why does she avoid Denerim?_

Whether it’s any of his business or not, Teagan wants to know. “Please forgive my curiosity …”  
  
“No.”  
  
Clearly, the whisky makes him too bold. Teagan fixes his eyes on Luthias’ ears and the track ahead of them and tries to think his way through what’s suddenly wrong. Best clear the air between them before the silence has time to roost.  
  
“Please accept my apology, my Lady-”  
  
“No.”  
  
Confused, Teagan watches Minna sidelong. _She’s peculiar. I’ll give her that._  
  
“I prize curiosity. Clearly, I spend too much time with people who already know that about me. I was being glib. Which made you uncomfortable and that was rude of me. Please accept my apology, _just Teagan_.” Her voice is gentle. Not genteel - it’s too husky for that. But it’s kind.  
  
_She’s kind._ “Of course, my- friend.”  
  
She smiles. Sweet and warm and open.  
  
Again, Teagan finds himself smiling back at her.  
  
Enough time passes that the mabari between them issues an annoyed snort.  
  
Teagan can’t remember what he’d meant to ask. Instead, he settles on “What else made Bann Fearchar feel better?”  
  
“Ironically, for a man who couldn’t stand the Denerim Court, he liked meeting returnees at the Landsmeet. Especially taking the fellow from Rainesfere under his wing and getting him minced.”  
  
“What did he tell you?” Teagan suddenly feels naked.  
  
“Don’t worry, your secrets are still safe. Granda took it as a grand compliment that you came back to Ferelden. Apparently,” she leans in, closing the gap between them, and lowers her voice, “the Landsmeet is filled with cakey, wankstained numpties.”  
  
“What does that mean?”  
  
“Only that _you’re not_ a cakey, wankstained numpty. What more do you want?”  
  
Teagan grins at Fearchar’s memory and the singular young woman who shares it.  
  
She pulls a large flask from her side, un-stoppers it and raises it in the air. “To the Old Man.” She takes a swig, re-stoppers it and offers it to Teagan.  
  
He knows this flask as soon as his fingers close around it. Ferelden make. Nothing fancy. The edges worn smooth. Teagan drank from it in celebration, exasperation and even boredom at every Landsmeet until two years ago. A dent on one side where, so he was told, a chevalier’s sword nicked it through the Storm Giant’s leather greatcoat. He knows the push-twist trick to un-stoppering it without even thinking. He raises it in toast and takes a swig. _Of water?_  
  
Teagan stares at the flask, unsure what to do with his mouthful of water.  
  
Minna smirks and growls, “ge’ tha’ down yer geiggie, lad.”  
  
He snorts, choking a little on the water and sputtering it down his breastplate. _Oh, well done, Trouble._  
  
“Andraste’s ass, Teagan! You’re a lightweight!”  
  
“Hardly a fair assessment,” he sputters, “you made me laugh.”  
  
“Won’t be the last time.”  
  
He hands the flask back to her, sincerely hoping it isn’t.  
  
She shakes her head. “It’s yours.”

* * *

The tall blond grasses bow and dance in the cool wind rolling up from the coast and onto the cliffs. Soft and salty and sounding of gulls basking in the breakers.  
  
Tack wags his tail as he trots between the two horses. Canine king of all he surveys.  
  
The elegant warrior on the black horse seems to be admiring the landscape, possibly retracing last night’s ride in his head. They wouldn’t have come this way, but he’s not to know that.  
  
Last night was … Minna pushes the specifics from her mind. Her left side pinches. And itches. Her right shoulder is sore and bruised. And worst of all, it cost her … _It can’t be changed._  
  
_Is this Maker’s will?_  
  
_Unlikely._  
  
Time spent with them doesn’t make Minna a Chantry sister. She doesn’t make claims to doing the “Maker’s work.”  
  
After two years, she knows that not all the Friends are … friendly. But they are needed in the teyrnir. It’s better, Minna reasons, to be In with the Friends and know most of the Whats and Whys, than be Out and risk Papa getting blindsided.  
  
Last night was probably not the Maker’s will, but here she is now, riding Jasper eastward along Eanraig’s Way out of honest necessity. This time yesterday, she’d been wracking her brains to contrive a reason to be here that would hold up under scrutiny. So not the Maker’s will, but it would do.  
  
She’d done a job weeks ago. She doesn’t need the payment for herself, but she does need payment. It’s too dangerous to dip into her own funds to pay forward to the next Friend. Creaky old Kestrel is too meticulous and too loyal a seneschal … and too fine a fellow for Minna to start playing games with him.  
  
_It’d be piss-poor repayment for his loyalty._  
  
She steals a guilty glance to her right, at the man who saved her life. By all reliable accounts, Teagan is a decent man. The sort the Friends either ignore, or laugh off as fiction.  
  
_He was Granda’s last fast friend …_  
  
_No. I need his saddlebag._  
  
_This won’t hurt him._  
  
_He won’t even know._  
  
It should be in the grass.  
  
Waiting.  
  
Red.  
  
But red what? Last time, it was a torn signalling flag down by the docks. The time before, a spatter of paint on a loose cobblestone in the market square. Both virtually invisible in their surroundings. What will it be here?  
  
Then she spots it: fletching. Nestled between a cluster of tall grasses growing around a large boulder is an arrow fired directly into the ground.  
  
Minna takes a deep breath. She’s been rehearsing this scenario in her head since their game of Diamondback. It helped keep her apart from her pain. Sober during the celebrations. Even so. She’s never made a retrieval with an audience before and she can’t risk questions.  
  
As they pass the boulder, Minna slows Jasper to a halt.  
  
Less than a breath later, Teagan slows his Forder. “Lady Minna?”  
  
Tack huffs and turns around to watch.  
  
Minna wrinkles her nose. “Forgive me. I’m caught short.”  
  
His eyes widen. “Oh.”  
  
“It isn’t dire... _yet,_ ” she pauses, letting the idea sink in. Ignoring how her pulse thunders through her neck and ears. “But between the whisky - _all the whisky_ \- and then the _whole_ flask …” _which you obligingly drained about ten minutes ago_ “… I think I should …” Minna jerks her head in the direction of her innocent-looking boulder, at a respectable distance away from the track.  
  
“Of course!” Teagan swings himself off his Forder and breezes over to Jasper’s left side to help Minna down.  
  
Minna hasn’t needed help dismounting for fifteen years, but it’s such a courtly gesture that she doesn’t have the heart to refuse him. She smiles, mumbles her thanks, and ignores the pangs of guilt.  
  
Teagan makes a little bow and takes both horses’ reins, with his back toward the boulder.  
  
“I’ll just be…”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
_Maker, it can’t be this easy_ … Minna trots toward the boulder, whistling for Tack, who bounds after her.  
  
The arrow, and payment, is simple to find: it’s a ring on the arrow’s shaft. A signet ring, holding a small scroll of parchment in place. With a quick jerk, Minna retrieves the arrow from the ground, brushes it off and slides it into the quiver at her right hip.  
  
“Tack,” she whispers, pleased when he leans in. “Dig a small hole where the arrow was.”  
  
He nods.  
  
“-And let me know if his head turns toward us.”  
  
The mabari blinks, then snorts.  
  
“I think it’s unlikely, too, but … this is important.”  
  
Behind the boulder, she unrolls the scroll: the signet is not her payment. Not exactly. Another job. A Friend waiting at the western end of the docks already wants this. Simple.

Minna revises the route she’ll take back home while examining the signet ring. Black metal: a human skull with a bar across the eyes and a star in its mouth. Not simple.  
  
_A pirate’s signet._  
  
_Maker’s Holy Pucker._  
  
_A fucking pirate!_  
  
_Important enough for his own signet … is he_ dead _or is this stolen?_  
  
With numb fingers, Minna digs into the tiny pocket in the waist of her smalls. She pulls out the two small red ribbons she stole from Auntie Morag’s stash while Auntie braided her hair, and tucks away the Friends’ scroll in exchange. While she pees, she loops the first ribbon around the damnable signet in a cow hitch. The second, she folds in half in preparation for the second such knot.  
  
As she trots back to Teagan and the horses with Tack trailing in her wake, she forces herself to breathe. And smile. And forget she’s clutching a pirate’s signet in her left hand.  
  
Only halfway done.  
  
“Thank you, Teagan. That hasn’t happened to me on a ride since I was a child.”  
  
He finally turns around, smiling. His eyes are bluer than the Waking Sea’s sky. “Of course.” He shows no signs of discomfort.  
  
_This should be simple. He just poured a whole flask of water over six fingers of whisky. It's been hours. He needs to make water. Just remind him._  
  
“Actually,” she says, keeping her voice light and casual because the less this good man knows, the safer he is, “… Highever is several hours away at a walk. Two or so at a trot … It’s very likely my father will want to see us both immediately …”  
  
Teagan frowns thoughtfully and nods.  
  
“… I mean, if you trust me to hold the reins, I certainly don’t mind…”  
  
“Thank you, my- friend.” He hands her back Jasper’s reins, then those of his own black Forder. He strokes the stallion’s nuzzle and murmurs, “You’re in good hands, Luthias.”  
  
“Wait - you named this _giant_ horse _Luthias_?”  
  
Teagan grins. He knows it’s droll.  
  
_That twinkle in his eye is trouble._

He’s halfway to the boulder before Minna realizes he’s gone.  
  
“Maker’s breath,” she curses under her breath, pulls two apples from a pouch at her belt, and offers one to each horse.  
  
She drops Jasper’s reins to handle the strange stallion.

Jasper, like all horses trained for service in Highever, will wait for his rider.  
  
Quickly and carefully, Minna slides her hands along Luthias’ right flank, softly cooing praise, until she gets to the offside saddle bag. Problem: she’s too short to get into the buckled saddlebag from the ground. This won’t be as smooth or quick as she’d hoped.  
  
“Tack,” she hisses.  
  
The mabari pokes his head around Luthias’ black legs.  
  
“I need some time. If Teagan finishes before I’m back on Jasper, I want you to pretend to chase a fennec. You know the sort of thing. Just don’t hurt him.”  
  
With a snort, the mabari takes off, his tail wagging in delight.  
  
Minna pats Luthias’ side and takes a deep breath. “I just bet Teagan’s got you trained better than a chevalier’s nag.” She seizes Luthias’ offside stirrup, grits her teeth, plants her left foot in the stirrup and hoists herself onto the saddle.  
  
She’s backward. _Good._  
  
She checks the boulder, seeing only the very top of Teagan’s head beyond it, and returns to work.  
  
The stallion snorts disapproval and stamps a little, but he doesn’t throw her.  
  
“Two minutes, Luthias,” she murmurs, “just two minutes.” Backward on the saddle, Minna can reach Teagan’s offside saddle bag. She unbuckles it, drops the pirate’s signet on top, slips the second cow hitch through the bottom hole of the strap and pulls it back through the buckle without fastening it.  
  
Tack erupts in a frenzy.  
  
Teagan’s startled cry is pitched a little too high for him to have simply been knocked over.  
  
_Why doesn’t Tack ever wait for them to_ finish? _That dog’s got a vindictive streak._  
  
Luthias stamps, shifting around. He’s taken all the umbrage he can.  
  
Minna slides down Luthias’ nearside, between both horses, lands with a grunt, then mounts Jasper from his offside.  
  
Tack explodes back into view, chasing a pair of terrorized fennecs.  
  
“Tack!” Minna reprimands, tightening her grip on Luthias’ reins and feeling shaky and sweaty from her spurt of frantic exertion. “Now!”  
  
Tack wheels back to Minna and sits. Mouth open, tongue lolling out, ears alert. The picture of the perfect mabari.  
  
She snorts and tosses him the wedge of cheese from her pouch. “No more funny business.”  
  
“He’s certainly spirited,” observes Teagan as he gently takes Luthias’ reins from Minna.  
  
“I’m sorry if he-”  
  
Tack snorts. Minna is endlessly grateful that he can’t say a word.  
  
“Not at all, my- friend.” He mounts Luthias in a single fluid motion. He opens his mouth to say something, but pauses, looking down at her from his higher seat. “Minna, are you well?”  
  
She nods shakily and ignores the fresh pangs of guilt, “Quite well. But I’m glad we’re riding back. I don’t think I could manage a hike.”  
  
Teagan nods slowly, still watching her.  
  
Eager to lessen his scrutiny, Minna urges Jasper forward into a walk, forcing Teagan to do the same.  
  
Tack gives a happy woof and begins trotting ahead of them.  
  
“Luthias really is an exceptional fellow, but he must demand a great deal of skill - when did you start riding?”  
  
Teagan grins and starts telling Minna about horsemanship in Ansburg.

_Safer if he doesn’t know._

_Maker, I hope this won't hurt him._

* * *

 


	9. Wishing on Horses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which pink apples are served.

* * *

 

The strange basalt pillars sprout tall as trees above them along the stony track. Moss grows along the south side - the track side - of the pillars, tall enough that Teagan can brush his fingers through it. White gulls float overhead, their cries distant and disembodied. The wind ruffles Teagan’s hair with the tang of salt and smoke.  
  
“We’re nearing Eanraig’s Steps,” Minna announces during a lull in the conversation, “we can water the horses there.”  
  
“Why are they called ‘Eanraig’s Steps’?” The last time Teagan was there, it was for a funeral. If anybody told the story afterward, he hadn't been sober enough to pay attention.

Minna sort-of shrugs and pretends that her armour doesn’t squeak. “That’s the only name anyone knows,” she evades.  
  
“Surely,” he presses, “there’s a story behind the name.”  
  
“There is, but it’s old.”  
  
He leans over and down, toward her. “May I please hear this old story?”  
  
“Really?” Her eyes narrow skeptically.  
  
Surprised at her sudden change, Teagan suddenly recalls all the pots of Antivan blossoms crowding the castle’s great hall and library. Last week, he’d dismissed them as an idiosyncrasy of Fergus’ exquisite Antivan wife whose name he’s completely forgotten. He now suspects the pots are evidence that Minna is frequently subjected to men ingratiating themselves to her. It makes sense: Highever is a bustling port, Bryce and Eleanor are gracious, hospitable and clearly wealthy and powerful. It’s even more clear that the Teyrn and Teyrna dote on their only daughter. An unmarried daughter who, if won, would provide tremendous political leverage for an ambitious man. Teagan knows that ambition isn’t necessarily a failing, but the sort of man who pursues his ambitions through marriage is … smarmy. Admittedly, Teagan hasn’t known the lady long, but he can’t see Minna Cousland being impressed by sycophants.  
  
He meets her gaze. “I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t mean it,” he states evenly.  
  
Satisfied, Minna nods, takes a deep breath and spins an outlandish yarn about a gigantic Alamarri warrior with an overbite who enjoyed wading into the Waking Sea during foul weather and hauling ships to safety. Despite her initial reluctance, she’s a talented storyteller. She quickly develops a rhythm and uses her deep, tangy voice like an instrument. Ordinarily, Teagan enjoys hearing stories and remembrances and outrageous old legends. Even the fanciful ones are good diversions. This story about Eanraig is especially fanciful and entertaining.  
  
But for some reason, it’s making him restless.  
  
“When the dragon arrived, it said-”  
  
“Do you meant to tell me the dragon _talked_?”  
  
“Teagan, you won’t get very far as a listener if you insist on realism.”  
  
“Why not?” He grins mischievously at her.  
  
“Because it annoys the storyteller,” she says calmly.  
  
“You don’t sound annoyed.”  
  
“I have a high threshold,” she can’t quite keeping the laughter from her voice, “and three full quivers.”  
  
Teagan grins and reaches back, into his nearside saddlebag. He pulls out a pink-skinned apple from home. It’s slightly bruised after last night’s clash, but it’s all he has. As she talks, he cuts the apple in half and hands one piece to Minna.  
  
She smiles and accepts it like it’s a delicacy. She doesn’t nibble at the apple like a courtier.

She bites.

Chews thoughtfully.

Actually tastes it.

And lets a companionable silence fall between them.

Teagan watches the line of her jaw as she chews and imagines how her neck looks when she swallows.

When she finishes, she continues: Eanraig fooled the implausibly-talking dragon into thinking the ship he held upside-down was his bathtub, thus saving the sailors hiding in the hold. When the dragon finally realized he’d been tricked, he exacted his revenge by cursing Eanraig’s lover, Yolena, into becoming a mermaid.  
  
“But what had _Yolena_ done to the dragon?”  
  
“Nothing. I agree, it's terribly unfair," she explains patiently, as though to a child, "but dragons in these stories are generally cruel. Don’t worry: it’s a mostly-happy ending.”  
  
Teagan smirks.  
  
So she tells Teagan about Eanraig’s impossibly strong teeth, and how they helped him build the Steps as a way for Yolena to safely enter - and exit - the sea, for she was known to leave it on occasion. It seems that the implausibly-talking dragon’s curse came with loopholes: in spite of her aquatic condition, Yolena presented Eanraig with four sons, therefore founding the clan Mac Eanraig.  
  
“But were the boys Eanraig’s, or had Yolena dallied with a shark or two?”  
  
“Three full quivers.”  
  
“I do apologize," Teagan tries to sound suitably admonished, though judging by her snicker, he isn't convincing.  
  
“There were no sharks. Not even an smooth-talking cuttlefish.”  
  
“Cuckolded by a cuttlefish,” Teagan muses, “that would be an unparallelled shame.”  
  
Minna chortles. “The legend is more fun than real life.”  
  
“Thank you, I enjoyed hearing the legend, and -” he pauses long enough to get her to turn back to him, “- thank you for not shooting me.”  
  
That bright smile of hers is guileless.  
  
During his carefree youth in Ansburg, his annual trips back, the interminable hours he suffers in the Denerim Court, and even market days at Rainesfere's crossroads, Teagan makes a study of how women of all sorts flirt. They're charming - like fluttering butterflies. Years ago, he hit upon the notion that flirting is _theatre of invitation_. It seems to suit. In fact, he wouldn't be surprised if there were an Orlesian treatise or eleven written about that. If they exist, Cailan probably has them stashed with the rest of the texts Eamon thinks he's barred from the Palace.

And why not?

It's rather delightful to be the audience for such theatre. Even more so to be direct recipient of such overtures. But that's how Teagan knows Minna isn’t flirting with him. As much as he might wish otherwise, she isn’t.

Despite that, getting her to smile - and especially to laugh - has been nudging at embers in the space below his stomach all day. He knows he’s acting like a stable hand showing off to a scullery maid by swinging from a barn rafter, and he needs to stop. He does!

But, Maker, he wishes he didn’t.

If wishing mattered, he would wish to be riding alongside her honestly. He would wish his mission of secrecy away from himself and onto someone else. But he can’t do that. Cailan’s right: he is his nephew’s only trustworthy agent. He might as well wish to be ten years younger, for all the good wishing will do.

* * *

 


	10. The Steps Taken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Teagan lets his hair down.

* * *

The mossy basalt pillars give way to a large stony clearing hazy with smoke.  
  
At the edge of the clearing, against the Waking Sea, a dozen men in leather armour like Minna’s attend a large pyre that looks to be several hours old. Likely fired before dawn, the heat rolls off the pyre in waves.  
  
Minna stares at it. The lovely, talkative young woman she was moments ago is gone. In the haze, she is washed of colour, somehow older. Her mouth is set into a small, grim line.  
  
Tack whimpers up at his mistress.  
  
Teagan stares at her, concerned. He was sure Fergus told him the patrol had suffered no losses. Had he misheard? Is she in pain? Perhaps the exertion of the comfort break was too much. _I should have helped her mount her horse._  
  
Before Teagan can say anything, Minna turns her gelding away from the pyre, toward the Steps, and leads them up the narrow trail carved along the side. Teagan hadn’t noticed the trail the last time he was here.

* * *

 _But then, it had been crowded on the Steps during an unusually cold and cloudless summer day. Windless. Long-winged sea birds wheeled around the pillar of smoke reaching into the sky like a marble column. The birds looked free and weightless._  
  
_Teagan, in contrast, was weighed down with sleeplessness and travel. Not fast and light travel, like he’d wanted, but the grinding of a royal procession. Maric wanted to pay his respects to Ferelden’s unsung Admiral. Cailan insisted he go for Fergus’ sake. Teagan was past caring about Eamon and Loghain Mac Tir’s reasons, so long as the damnable procession arrived in time._  
  
_They did, but only just._  
  
_And all Teagan could do was stare stupidly at the throng at the top of the cliff through eyes that felt like grit: Ferelden’s Great and Good in their finery, forced to stand, cheek by jowl, with sailors and shepherds weeping in their humble Chantry-best. Foreign dignitaries draped in silks and laces, addressed as equals by dockworkers too bleary-eyed to give a damn about minding their place._

Fearchar would enjoy this.

 _If it were the Landsmeet, they could stand in the back and quietly laugh at the discomfort of the ignoble nobles._  
  
_But the Landsmeet was postponed for Fearchar’s funeral._  
  
_Teagan swallowed around the choke in his throat. Closed his eyes. Mastered himself. Sort of._  
  
_A lissome woman in dress leathers stood in front of him._

 _After a breath, he recognized her: Alfstanna._  
  
_He’d never seen her hair loose. She seemed ... soft. Once, that would have thrilled him. Of course, that was before she made him understand what she hadn’t explained. They’d since settled into a comfortable friendship. Maker, he was glad of her._ Do I share the dark pools under her eyes? Probably.  
  
_As though reading his thoughts, Alfstanna smiled wearily at him.  She gave him an affectionate peck on the cheek and pulled the metal twist off the end of his braid faster than he could object._  
  
_That’s when Teagan saw the men in House Cousland’s livery and realized that Alfstanna had guided her liege lord toward Teagan’s party. Not toward himself, of course, but Maric and Cailan._  
  
_And there he stood: Teyrn Bryce Cousland with haunted, red-rimmed eyes, looking dazed and swaying slightly. Ordinarily fastidious, Bryce’s hair was dishevelled, and his goatee needed a trim. He was flanked by two strapping young knights with shaggy heads, clearly unaccustomed to seeing their lord in such a state._  
  
_“Your Majesty, Your Highness, My Lords,” Teyrn Bryce croaked, his usually smooth baritone scratched and battered, “on behalf of Highever and the Storm Coast, I bid you welcome.” His eyes wandered to Alfstanna, who tugged at her hair. “Ah - If you mean to show respect to Lord Fearchar’s memory, I beg you to unbind your hair, as is local custom.”_

* * *

“Lieutenant Cousland!” booms the small, wiry man. Minna just pointed him out as Captain Heronson. He’s coming toward them at a gallop on his bay Charger.  
  
Teagan wants to ask Minna about Highever’s cavalry. At least, that’s what he assumes they are. Given their military ranks, horse bows, identical armour, and positively un-Ferelden keenness for an animal other than a mabari, he thinks it’s a reasonable assumption. But it will have to wait.  
  
“Lady Minna,” Heronson drawls as he hops onto the ground, “You pull last night’s stunt again, I will _personally_ feed you to a bear.” His smile is feral. He prowls closer to Minna.  
  
Tack growls a soft warning at the man.

Heronson scoffs at the wardog. “ _Maf'rath's balls!_ I'm an old man, but if the Maker calls me before you can prove to me that you know the first thing about strategy, _I'm not going_.”

He doesn’t move like an old man, but Teagan can't be sure how old he is. That dragon helm seems to be part of the uniform. The top half of his face is covered with helm and tooled leather scales. All Teagan can see of him are his sharp black eyes. Raptor eyes. The weathered frown lines around his mouth suggest that he’s either between Bryce and Eamon in age, or that he was born scowling. Given that he’s scowling now, it’s not an unreasonable notion.  
  
“It’s just I couldn’t find anyone …” Her voice ebbs from the words as Heronson stares straight into her eyes. They’re the same height - both a head and shoulders shorter than Teagan, but Heronson seems larger than he is.

“Bullshit.”  
  
Teagan feels a scowl settling around his own mouth and forehead as the bantam soldier glares at Minna and she drains of what little colour she had. He bristles.  
  
“I just thought-”  
  
“- _You weren’t thinking!_ ”  
  
“Captain,” with a step, Teagan wedges himself between the two. “Lady Cousland saved dozens of lives last night by charging that ambush.” His voice is loud. Getting louder with each word. The others might be watching, but all Teagan sees is the abusive little shit in front of him.  
  
“Lord Guerrin,” Heronson growls. He dips his head in a mock bow, not taking his eyes from Teagan’s. Not blinking. Certainly not caring that Teagan looms over him.  
  
Teagan doesn’t blink, but he isn’t used to hearing that name. He isn’t ‘Lord Guerrin.’ Eamon is.  
  
“Yes. I know exactly who you are.” Heronson chews embrium leaves. The smell puffs up at Teagan when the smaller man snorts. Not unpleasant - sweet, slightly spicy. It’s an uncommon habit in the Bannorn, but it’s almost a given among the older men at Castle Cousland. Denerim Harbour was a battle of fire on water, and chewing embrium eases the breathing for men whose lungs never truly stopped burning.

“And I know you’re admonishing a warrior for performing a stunning act of valour.”

"Valour?" he laughs, "That was luck, Teagan Guerrin. That spear, half an inch in any direction, we'd be here for a _shared_ pyre. And _one pyre is too damned many!_ I don’t celebrate when one of my men does something so fucking stupid!” Heronson squares his shoulders and glowers up at Teagan.

Teagan squares his and glowers down at Heronson.  
  
“On the bright side-” Minna announces, loudly, from behind Teagan's right shoulder, “Ross owes you a sovereign.”

* * *

 _Teagan let Alfstanna lead him onto the Steps. Down. Directly behind the family, among close friends and former crewmen. Three Ferelden lords, dozens of weepy old sea dogs, a score of merchant princes - easily outnumbering Fearchar's own kin._  
  
_“…differs from the Bannorn…”_ Maker _, Alfstanna was_ still _talking. At least now she addressed Bryland of South Reach. The three Ferelden lords stood together. Teagan was wedged on the end between them and a mustachioed merchant prince in a black velvet greatcoat with sharp gold embroidery. “Only the women who are his blood will sing the lament here…”_  
  
_“But_ where _are they?” exhaustion made Bryland’s accent thick. He’d been raised in exile in Orlais, among his mother’s people, but the old sailors surrounding them forgave him: at the battle of Denerim Harbour, Bryland fought on the_ Fury _as Fearchar’s bodyguard._  
  
_Alfstanna nodded toward the two small forms standing at the bottom of the Steps: two women in black, huddled against the cold and smoke in dark shawls drawn tight around their shoulders. They faced away from the throng, toward the pyre. Their unbound hair glinted in the sunlight: one had waves of copper with silver, the other had curls of nut-brown with … not red, not gold. When the Chantry priests finished, Fearchar’s only daughter and granddaughter would have to sing._

_"Surely," Bryland's voice was pitying, "they cannot be expected to do this alone?"_

_"That's the whole point of the custom," Alfstanna explained, "so don't expect opera. I doubt either of them have slept in days."_  
  
_“Besides, those two are the only ones who know the old words,” offered the mustachioed merchant prince. He had a faded Starkhavener brogue, “The Old Man once told me that the night of his own father’s funeral, the women singing the lament stretched from one side of the Steps to the other.” His eyes stroked the silver-copper waves of Eleanor’s hair as he spoke. “The Chevaliers really hunted the Mac Eanraigs down.”_

* * *

By the time the sergeant interrupted them with his report, Minna would almost have given him Tack in thanks.

Heronson and Teagan finally unlocked their horns.

Minna promptly sent Teagan and Tack to check on the horses at the far end of the field.

With Teagan chatting with the others, she and Heronson could have a quick word.  
  
“I would have thought Guerrin’s son would be more like him,” muses Heronson.  
  
“He's the younger of two sons.”  
  
“Indeed. The elder brother is the spit of his father within and without. This one lacks … his father had a certain ruthlessness. Don't misunderstand: Guerrin wasn’t a cruel man, but he was a man at war. He could make terrible decisions for the greater good. This one can’t stand to watch you get chewed out by your own captain.” He sounds more amused than disappointed.  
  
“Does Ferelden need another ruthless man?” Minna watches Tack sidle up to Teagan and lean heavily against him. His tail thumps the ground as the man absentmindedly scratches him behind the ears. Some wardog.  
  
“I wish it didn’t. I wish more of these so-called nobles understood the meaning of the word. But since they don’t, we have to safeguard your esteemed parents against ruthless opponents.”  
  
“And by extension, Fergus.”  
  
“Yes," Heronson's eyes narrow as he concedes. "The problem is that you didn't raise an alarm."  
  
The horses nicker. Tack plays keep-away with one of Teagan’s gloves while Teagan chases after the mabari that stole his glove.  
  
“Someone was using Eremon’s Flashcode. I didn’t think an alarm would be wise.”  
  
His sharp intake of breath betrays his shock. “Someone in the castle?”  
  
“Or the town.” She feels a little exonerated - not even Heronson considered someone using the Flashcode.  
  
He pushes his breath through his nose, frowning. “Did you think to tell Aldous or Nan? Or anybody?”  
  
“I -no.”  
  
“Min, you _live in a castle_. You’re never alone. Part of command is asking for help: knowing who to ask and when. How would any of us feel if you’d paid for Ross’ life with your own?”  
  
Minna stares at the grizzled veteran.  
  
“ _Of course I know._ I was there when they reported to your Lord Father. Lesser men would've covered their tracks and lied, but Fergus and Ross are honourable. What _could have_ happened has them horrified. I just hope it means they’ve pulled their thumbs out of their asses for good. That ambush would not have taken _an alert patrol_ by surprise. Thank the Maker, that annoying little shit was there last night. He and his men were _alert_.”  
  
She nods, trying to forget last night even as the pyre’s smoke billows up the Steps and swirls at her feet. “Did you know Quiet Peg kissed him?”  
  
“Huh. Maybe he isn’t just an annoying little shit.”  
  
“Does it grieve you to concede it?”  
  
“That depends. Do you think he would oblige us?”  
  
“On his own behalf, I think he would. But you might have to stop shouting at me.”  
  
“Unacceptable. You love my shouting. Besides, he’s pretty loud, himself.”

He is. Between the two of them, Minna's ears have only just stopped ringing. “Do you need all of Guerrin’s heirs?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“Let me work on it.”  
  
“While you do, consider what this one wants in exchange.”  
  
“Why should he want anything?”  
  
“Because he came here straight from the Royal Palace. He came into Highever by the Pilgrim’s Path and met his men on the North Road the morning he arrived - they brought the barrels of cider. Likely took the Calenhad ferry.”  
  
“Oh.” Her shoulders slump. “I didn’t know that.” Why hadn't it occurred to her?  
  
“Just…” He sighs and the smell of embrium sap swirls around them both. His voice is almost soft. “Keep an eye on him, Min. To most people, Highever is a means, not an end.”

* * *

 


	11. Forgotten, but Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Nathaniel takes a bow, and Luthias does not breathe fire.

* * *

_A rheumy-eyed Revered Mother hobbled around the pyre, droning the Canticle of Trials and waving a thurible so heavy, the momentum threatened to knock her on her ass. Two Sisters followed in her wake, chanting in unison, taking turns catching the old dear and setting her back on her feet._  
  
_Teagan was sure he heard Fearchar’s roaring laughter._  
  
_The merchant prince beside Teagan bowed his head. His black mustachio twitched as he smiled. Perhaps he heard the Old Man, too._

* * *

“I understand from your men that this cavalry was your idea.” Teagan grimaces as he puts his mabari-chewed glove back on. It’s squishy.  
  
“More of a shared idea. I knew a young man who wanted nothing more than to travel as a knight errant." Minna keeps her voice as light as she can. "A noble ambition. I thought, if there were a company, we could adventure together on missions of honour, perhaps a little glory … and he could be happy to stay in the Coastlands.”  
  
Teagan nods slowly and looks around at the others. “Which…” he inhales, “Which lucky fellow is he?”  
  
“Oh none. He left.”  
  
“He left the company?”  
  
“No, left Ferelden.” She takes a deep breath and pulls herself up. Tall like for inspection. No drooping allowed.  
  
“But you kept the company?”  
  
“As it happens, I’m rather good at this. We support Highever’s regulars as scouts and skirmishers. When we don’t have to do that, we deal with small things: perish all ye footpads, escorting officials who tend to get lost when they’re out-of-doors, dispatches, helping freeholders who need a few extra hands, that sort of thing. It beats embroidery by the fire.”  
  
“You don’t care for firesides?”  
  
“Firesides, yes. Embroidery, no. I'm useless for most homey things. Oriana and I get on so well because she takes the knotted messes I make and turns them into something beautiful.”

* * *

_Our voices fly._

_Tandem sounds, bouncing off the rock, back to the mourners._

_We hear nothing but our voices._

_Not sweet or lilting like the women of the Bannorn._

_Strong._

_Harsh with grief and anger._

_Defiant._

_The only song always sung on the Steps._

_The words are old Alamarri._

_Forgotten, but not._

* * *

The track on the cliffs is narrow, but both Luthias and Jasper have good footing, so Teagan and Minna ride close. From their vantage, Minna watches small groups of women and older girls foraging in the tide pools, their skirts tied around their knees, and reed hampers strapped to their hips. Assorted little ones scramble around on the rocky beach, combing it for various treasures.  
  
Teagan watches the escaped curls on Minna’s head drift in the cool breeze.  
  
“If you think you could manage a trot,” Minna’s voice snaps Teagan from his foolish reverie. To his relief, she’s inspecting the track ahead. “We could be back in Highever in an hour, and likely the castle an hour after that.”  
  
That seems ambitious. Not for himself, or either horse, or Tack, but Minna’s still pale. She had the best colour in the yard this morning, just after that Circle mage finished with her, and she’s been draining ever since. If there was a spell or a tonic involved, it’s clearly worn off. “Can you manage a trot?”  
  
“Of course I-” she bites off her words. Some of last night’s snarl has returned to her voice. She takes a deep breath, holds it and eases it out through her nose. Her posture deflates, just a little. “I’m sorry, Teagan. My injury is not your fault. I am grateful for your help.”  
  
“If there is anything I can do, please tell me.”

“Well. Please don’t ask me how I am. My most truthful answer is that I’m _unnnUuunngh_ , and I have been since the whisky wore off.”  
  
Teagan nods sympathetically and unconsciously flexes his left hand as it holds the reins. “So it’s pointless to ask.”  
  
“Exactly. I need to start saving up all my ‘Fine, never better!’ for our grand parade.”  
  
“Grand parade?” _Maker, a parade??_

She nods, “Heronson told me that rumours are circulating in the town that I died.” _She sounds so calm!_ Teagan can feel his eyes widening. _How can she sound so calm?_ She grins up at him. “They’re mistaken, obviously. But I still need everybody to see me alive and, as far as they know, completely whole. So…” she takes a breath, “we’ll come in the western dock gate, past the gibbets and then the docks, up the main road and through the market. And I need to drag you along with me, because everybody wants to see the bann who beheaded twenty men in a single stroke.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I don’t remember that bit. I assume I was on the ground by then, but I do thank you for eliminating a third of our enemies in a single stroke. Amazing.” She sounds breezy talking about last night’s gore. Teagan wonders if this is a woman’s version of bravado. He’s never before fought alongside a woman, so he doesn’t know.  
  
“ _One_ ,” he asserts, “I beheaded one.”

“Well, in that case, I hope Luthias really does breathe fire.”  
  
“We were in a skirmish! It was bad - _very bad_ \- but they happen all the time, all over Ferelden.” _Maker, what are the townsfolk hoping to see when we ride through?_ “How did a story about one skirmish get so outlandish so quickly?”  
  
“Ordinarily, I’d say it’s the drinking. But it’s also the timing. Stories tend to germinate quickly before the Tears. It’s really the minstrel’s harvest time.”  
  
“The Tears?” Teagan knows he sounds ignorant and confused, but only because he is. The whole of Highever is eagerly preparing for a local festival named for crying, and in the week he’s already been here, he hasn’t actually had the chance to ask anyone _why_. He’d explain this, but he can tell from the way Minna sizes him up that she already knows.  
  
“Osen’s Tears. You know about _Osen’s Tears_ , yes?”  
  
“I know a story about Lord Conobar of Highever and his wife Flemeth. She ran off with a minstrel named Osen, whom Conobar had killed and then Flemeth swore vengeance and - do you mean that Osen?”  
  
She hesitates. “When was the last time you star-watched?”

“Star-watched?” He shrugs. Before he left Ansburg … sort of. As boys, on balmy nights, he and his cousin Cador climbed onto the roof and stared up at the stars, but they’d hardly made a serious study of it. Star-watching then was tinged with the forbidden: sneaking around, breaking curfew and possibly plotting a prank. The closest he’d come to star-watching in Ferelden would probably be during the first weeks in Rainesfere. Far less balmy. More tinged with hard graft. His tent had rips. He’d drift off to sleep watching stars through those rips, then wake with the moons shining in his eyes. “I … I don’t think I’ve ever made a study of it.”  
  
She’s quiet for a moment. Thoughtful. “Then, would you like to hear a story?”  
  
Teagan nods. He’d happily listen to any story she cared to tell.  
  
“When Osen died, his spirit entered the Fade, of course, but he couldn’t forget his beloved Flemeth. So on his journey to the Maker’s side, he wept. All his love, and regret and shame - for he did steal a man’s wife, after all - and worry for his beautiful, mercurial, treacherous Flemeth - he wept all that into the Fade. When he arrived at the Maker’s side, he begged forgiveness and mercy. He begged for a chance to send his Flemeth a token of comfort. Something to remind her that he wasn’t truly lost to her. That’s why the Maker allows Osen’s Tears to fall. Every year, in a shower of stars across the skies of Highever, the tears of a dead minstrel fall, and we can all see that nobody is ever truly lost.”  
  
The women foraging in the tide pools call out to their children as they return to the beach. They move slowly, weighted down by whatever they gleaned from the sea. Minna watches them, has likely watched them dozens of times over her life. Teagan realizes he can’t see any boys older than his nephew Connor on the beach. They’re likely with the rest of the menfolk, in the little fishing boats bobbing on the horizon.

He looks to the thin clouds streaking across the sky: Feathers. At this time of year in Rainesfere, Feathers urge a farmer to make hay - a casual reminder that the fine weather won't last. But in Highever, nothing about the weather is treated casually. How close are those horizon-speck men to danger? How close are the women and children?

“That must be a powerful story here."

Minna nods, watching the women with their broods.  
  
“Thank you for telling me.”  
  
She turns back to him and smiles, “You’re very welcome. Papa thought that King Cailan might like to participate in the first night of the festival. It’s a bit somber … but it helps.”  
  
“Because of Maric?”  
  
She pauses. “And Queen Rowan. I don’t presume … anything. Least of all to speak for my father -” she looks away, toward Highever’s grey profile rising from the grey cliff. “But I’ve observed that many folk need to mark long-held losses. The Tears is a way to do it and not feel so alone.”  
  
Teagan wonders if Minna’s ever actually met Cailan. She must have done. That’s hardly the sort of thing Cailan might tell Fergus - close as they are, boys don’t confide those sorts of things to each other. Cailan’s never said anything to Teagan, but he knows. He feels it, too.

“The rest of the festival is quite merry - probably more King Cailan’s thing. Osen was a minstrel, after all, so there are lots of balls and dances, songs, plays, sometimes small tournaments, and absolutely too much food and drink. Many of the more …” she pauses, searching for the right word, finally settling on “' _fashionable nobles'_ use the Tears as a way to find the minstrels they’ll hire for their Satinalia parties. Some rather stuffy fellows from the Royal Palace are usually sent down with that task. So. Do you think you can manage a trot?”  
  
“I think I might.”  
  
She grins and urges Jasper forward. Tack falls in beside them with practised ease.  
  
Teagan follows, and decides that Minna’s nut-brown hair is shot through with the dark amber of late summer honey. Specifically, the sort harvested by the bann of a little backwater wedged between Calenhad and the Frostbacks.

* * *

To her shame, Minna can’t stop babbling. If she does, she knows she’ll cry. That would be worse. Teagan looks so … liar he might be, but he seems genuinely concerned. The weathered guardsman - whose casual observation that Minna wasn’t riding Thistle started the whole mess - looks ready to scale the watchtower’s sheer wall and climb in through the window.

“I never should have ridden her so hard.”

“Lady Minna,” Teagan’s voice is gentle, “if you’d arrived any later, the patrol would have been ambushed.”

“Then I should have barded her to keep her safer.”

“Do you have any idea how _heavy_ barding is?”

She bows her head and squeaks, “No.”

“Too heavy for a horse her size. Not for long-distance racing.” He passes a clean handkerchief to her.

She squeezes the folded square of cloth. “Thistle was … magnificent. She’d do anything for me. She never threw me before last night. Not once.”

“She threw you to safety. I saw.”

“When I got her - she was a gift - he said she’d keep me safe. Maker, I wonder if he had any idea.”

“Probably. Your Lord Father has certainly seen his share of combat.”

“He has.” Minna blinks until she’s sure her eyes are dry. Her smile feels stiff on her face as she passes Teagan’s handkerchief back to him, slightly wrinkled, but unused. “But my Lord Father gave me Jasper here. He’s a grand, steady fellow, but …” _Everything about Thistle was wonderful and surprising. Especially her arrival._

* * *

 _Fergus and Ser Gilmore burst into the library, called her to the bailey, ran out._  
  
_She assumed the worst. Hared after them, inkpot still in-hand. Spattering the halls and herself with lamp-black and gum, Brother Aldous bellowing after her heels._  
  
_Skidded to a halt at the open gate. Almost directly into him._  
  
_His black hair was almost blue in the sunlight. His eyes - Maker, his eyes - grey and sparkling like the Waking Sea on a fine day. His arms were open._  
  
_Ordinarily, he preferred to draw as few eyes as possible. Taciturn. Most dismissed him as dour. He preferred it, he said. But that day! That day, he preened. Everyone could see his sweet smile. Everyone could see him smiling at her. That alone …_  
  
_… but then he bowed deeply, the way he used to tease her when she was little. He held out a bouquet of thistles, tied in the middle with a horse's lead line. Not his own - dignified, dappled Equinor stood behind him, saddled, bearing his clumpy bedroll and that cheesecloth he called a tent. Behind Equinor: a magnificent bay mare._  
  
_She gaped._  
  
_“My Lady,” when he smiled like that, she felt warm and light. “Have I displeased you?” He took both her hands in his free hand and kissed her knuckles. He stood as close as either of them dared with Fergus standing vigilant by the door to the main hall. This close, he smelled like dry horse and pine needles and himself. She could get drunk on that smell. She’d tried. “Or is it-” he whispered, more hot breath than voice, “that I’ve finally rendered you speechless?”_  
  
_Her thumb traced the scar under his lower lip. “My Sweet Nate-”_  
  
_“-Shhh. Don’t let_ that _get around. I have a reputation.”_  
  
_“My Sweet Nate,” she insisted, but quieter. “She’s magnificent. But she’s too, too much.”_  
  
_“She’s your equal.”_  
  
_“Jasper-”_  
  
_“-is a fine fellow, but he isn't brave enough. This darling is. She'll keep you safe. Please, My Lady Minna, accept my humble offering in honour of your eighteenth birthday.” He placed the bouquet of thistles into her hands. No prickles. He wrapped his hands around hers. His fingertips were covered in red pinpricks._  
  
_“I love you, Nathaniel Howe.”_  
  
_“I love you, Minna Cousland. And I need to speak with your Lord Father.”_

* * *

In the teyrnir of Highever, there is the arling of Amaranthine, there is the fortress of Vigil's Keep, there is the undercroft of Vigil's Keep, there is a certain locked box which contains a number of unopened letters.

> **To: Nathaniel Howe, squire of Ser Rodolphe Varley**  
>  **Varley Manor of Starkhaven**  
>    
>  **From: Lady Delilah Howe**  
>  **Vigil’s Keep of Amaranthine**  
>  **Kingdom of Ferelden**  
>    
>  22 Firstfall, 9:23
> 
> Nathaniel, I know you can be stupid, but I never before thought you cruel.  
>    
>  Do you remember when you stole Miss Maggie from me? I’d wounded your precious pride and you thought to teach me a lesson. You left her arms where I’d find them. Do you remember how I cried? I think you regretted what you’d done the minute you saw how much it hurt me.  
>    
>  Was it because you realized that hurting me didn't soothe you damnable pride? When we mended things and you couldn’t remember where you’d hidden the rest of Miss Maggie, you helped me look for her for weeks and weeks after. We never did find her, but I thought you became a better big brother after that.  
>    
>  We were children then.  
>    
>  You’re supposed to be a grown man now.  
>    
>  How could you do this to my dearest friend? You’ve left her ripped to pieces and lost, just like Miss Maggie. Don’t you dare act surprised, you heartless wretch! You’ve known Minna for as long as I have and she’s loved you since she was little. The whole world knew that because she never bothered to hide it.
> 
> You haven’t hurt her. You’ve gutted her.  
>    
>  And there is nothing I can do about any of this and I hate you for that.  
>    
>  I don’t expect - and I don’t want \- letters from you. You’re a penniless, overworked squire now. You save your ink and limited time for Minna. You write to her and apologize. Explain yourself. Let her know whatever idiotic reasoning sent you so far from her.  
>    
>  Patch it up with Minna and come home.  
>    
>  Stunned by your complete idiocy,  
>    
>  Delilah

* * *

_Teagan watched the long curls shining red-gold against her shawl. She and her kin would leave first, followed then by Teagan and his cohort. The man she leaned into could not be a kinsman: too lanky for a Mac Eanraig, too slight for a Cousland. His long, straight hair was so black, it shone blue._  
  
_“Now who,” queried the merchant prince, “is that very lucky lordling?”_  
  
_“Amaranthine’s eldest,” Alfstanna explained._  
  
_Bryland shifted on the other side of her. “Howe’s eldest?”_  
  
_The Howe bent sideways to wrap his arm around her shoulders. Even then, he towered over her like a sheltering tree._  
  
_“The same. The Cousland and Howe children usually stomp around together before the Landsmeet. Young Ross Mac Eanraig’s hosted the boys for hunting parties. I’m not sure when those two got sweet. She’ll be turning eighteen this autumn.”_  
  
_“A fine age,” purred the Starkhavener. “But does the little lordling have the stones to ask_ Bryce Cousland _?”_  
  
_“Oh, it’s not Bryce he’d need to ask, but the girl herself.”_  
  
_“And has he?” Bryland sounded breathless._  
  
_Her shoulders shuddered. She sobbed while nobody heard. The Howe gently stroked her hair, careful to not tangle her curls._  
  
_Alfstanna clicked her tongue. “I don’t know what the damnable fool is waiting for._  
  
_Starkhavener’s moustachio twitched, “Daddy’s approval?”_  
  
_“Ha. We’ll all see Loghain Mac Tir modelling Orlesian silk knickers before that happens.”_  
  
_“My, you Fereldens do know how to have a good time-"_

_The Howe looked to be about twenty, twenty-two. At that age, Teagan had been a bann for years, and couldn't guess what his late father would have approved. But Rainesfere was hardly Amaranthine.  
_

_"-But why should the wee lordling’s Daddy object to the match?”_  
  
_“Rendon can’t stand the girl.”_  
  
_“He’s been perverse ever since White River,” Bryland sighed. “He should be here, paying Lord Fearchar his respects, but …”_

_Teagan watched the tentative way the Howe's fingers caressed her hair. At that age, Teagan hadn't been so lucky. Somewhere, underneath the exhaustion and grief, he wished ... it didn't matter._

* * *


	12. The Hanging Hundred (TW: corpses)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Minna reads bodies, and Teagan sketches them. Sort of.

* * *

Highever’s gibbets hang at the edge of the high tide road. They’re called the Hanging Hundred: man-sized lanterns hanging  from tree-trunk posts set into the breaker wall between the low and high tide roads. Easily seen by ships at sea. Easily seen from the docks. In all weather. Lit at night. Guarded when full. Proof the Teyrn of Highever enforces the King’s law with high justice.  
  
They’re ghastly.

It's windy.

They're dancing. A gentle swaying, keeping time to unheard music, creaking along to forgotten words.  
  
The Guard and Templars on duty snap to attention: shoulders back, jaws out. Ready for Lady Cousland’s inspection. Aware that she could ask questions - tricky questions - at any time.  
  
Tack growls menacingly at the men locked in the gibbets. They attacked him last night, and like all mabari, Tack holds a grudge. He insinuates himself between the Hundred and Minna.  
  
Jasper, for his part, nuzzles Tack and calmly goes where Minna bids. He’s been to the Hundred before.  
  
As expected of her, Minna clenches her jaw, swallows back the bile and makes a show of inspecting the Hanging Hundred. Her performance here will affect morale. She’s just glad she can do it on horseback: it’s a nauseating task.  
  
“Lady Minna,” Teagan’s been more formal since the first watchtower. “It appears that many of these men are … dead. Must you perform such a grisly task?”  
  
_Oh, bless._ “I really am fine. After I’ve done my duty, the Guard and Templars will have leave to cremate and return to their regular duties. So, yes, the inspection is necessary. And I already know - they’re all dead.”  
  
“All?”  
  
Minna nods, urges Jasper to a slow walk, and reads the corpses in the cages. All were stripped to their smalls before being locked in.  
  
According to Fergus, there were twenty slavers in Eanraig’s Cave, and he’s meticulous about these sorts of things.  
  
The first half dozen gibbets hold the bodyguards, judging by their youth and brutal injuries. Likely, they held the narrow mouth of the cave. Ross Mac Eanraig - more familiar with the caves - would have led the patrol in. The bodyguards had been ignorant of Ross’ speed and agility. Ross gutted them with their own daggers. Probably before Fergus or Ser Gilmore could squeeze past him in the narrow cave mouth.  
  
“All. During the Occupation, too many good townsfolk met the Hanging Hundred because they were loyal to a free Ferelden.” She pretends she doesn’t notice how several of the guards and even Templars shift, holding themselves and their halberds straighter: proud grandchildren. “So when my Lord Father returned, he dispensed with the tradition. Now only criminal’s corpses grace the gibbets. The Templars keep a weather eye on them in case the Fade gets frisky. The gibbets hang for a day or two, as a warning.”  
  
“I’m warned.”  
  
Another dozen gibbets hold the slavers: broken noses and bruised faces. Clearly, they’d been ignorant of how Fergus likes his men to use their shields. One has bite marks on the inside of his hand. Minna smirks at the thought of some frightened crafter biting hard enough to break skin. The slavers all have execution slits on both sides of their necks. Fergus did for them, probably right in front of that plucky crafter and her fellow nearly-slaves, by way of reassurance.  
  
“Don’t they gibbet criminals in the Bannorn?” She knows they do. The wicked contraptions are usually stored in the quaint Chantries dotting Ferelden’s rolling countryside, next to the desk where sermons about mercy are written.  
  
“Yes, and usually as a method of execution. Personally, I find it … unnecessary.” He looks at the slavers - his eyes narrowed, nose wrinkled, mouth a thin line behind that meticulous goatee. He shifts in his saddle.  
  
The next fifty gibbets hold the ambushers. Messier. Most dispatched by swords. Nine still have her arrows sticking out of their throats. Six don’t have throats, thanks to Tack. Teagan’s alleged twenty beheaded men are indeed just the one: his head sits at his feet. His eyes stare glassily out at a point above her head. He looks like he’s grinning. Before Minna can fully wonder why, she shoves the question away by asking another:  
  
“Unnecessary?”  
  
“If a man’s life is owing, I execute him and have done.”  
  
“You wouldn’t rather let the elements or starvation do for him?”  
  
The guards pretending they can’t hear raise their eyebrows - likely relieved that Lady Cousland’s tricky questions aren’t aimed at them.  
  
“What, I’m supposed to believe that by forcing a man to die of exposure, my part in his death is somehow excused? Hardly.” He looks back toward the executed slavers. “Perhaps this was too clean a death for such vile men, but torturing them would only have sullied Lord Fergus.” His eyes never rest on one man. Minna didn’t think they would. It's taken her years to get used to this grisly duty, so she knows: this close, the Hanging Hundred are overwhelming. Even when they’re seventy. Minna wonders if the village of Rainesfere even has seventy people.  
  
She should apologize to Teagan: she dragged him to this ghastly place.  
  
She should also order the Guard to lower the gibbets and fire the pyres: she’s seen - no. No. She hasn’t seen everything. These men need to tell her more. Beyond what Fergus already knows. It’s her duty to tell him more.  
  
She turns back to the gibbets. “Lord Teagan, I’m sorry we must tarry…” She urges Jasper back to the beginning of the row. Teagan follows closely on Luthias. Tack snorts and lopes ahead, determined to keep himself between the Hundred and Minna.  
  
In life, all of these men used their bodies. Even the slavers’ remains suggest a life spent in some labour. But specific labour. Rope-like muscles in their arms and shoulders … lighter than warriors like Teagan or Fergus, whose training encourages bulk. These men are ... a bit stringy. They could almost be cavalrymen, except their thighs aren't stringy enough. These men … she’s seen these men - rather, the _way_ they’re muscled - all her life.  
  
“Lady Minna, may I help?”  
  
“Lord Teagan,” she keeps her voice low. He has to lean down to hear her. Probably uncomfortable, but she doesn’t want them overheard. She doesn’t know all the Guard. “Do all these men have sailor’s bodies?”  
  
He stares at her, then the gibbets, then nods.  
  
That’s when she sees them - past the blood and filth and bruising on their pallid skin. As clear as a Chantry bell: “Maker, how did we miss the tattoos?”  
  
“Too much blood,” Teagan tugs his right gauntlet off, then pulls a small battered book and a bit of charcoal from a pouch on his belt.  
  
Minna tries not to stare as he quickly and competently sketches the tattoos into the book. _How clever of him._ She turns her attention to the ink on the corpses. Many had sailed as far as Rivain and Antiva, but were too pale to be _from_ points so far north. Most of the tattoos hail from the Waking Sea: Jader, Kirkwall … more Amaranthine than Highever. Even Denerim and Gwaren. Minna can feel her face sinking into a scowl. None of it’s unexpected for a seaman’s body. Nothing labels them villains. “None of these are remarkable. I’d hoped …”  
  
“What, that the Felicisima Armada gave out tattoos as sign-on bonuses?”  
  
“Well, if they don’t, I can’t see the appeal.” She tries to sound nonchalant. Anything to squash the cold knot of panic digging into her gut. She’s missing something. They’re still just random sailors. But they can’t be: random sailors don’t employ maleficar to magic storms down upon Fergus Cousland’s head. She needs to riddle this out. Soon. These bodies need to be cremated by dawn.  
  
“If it’s any consolation, I hear they get to wear silly hats.” His smile spreads slowly from his eyes, outward.

_He really is trouble, but at least he’s not chundering over the breaker wall._

“Minna, given my limited but annual experiences at sea, might I point out something?”  
  
“Please.”  
  
“The sailors I know who have tattoos are quite proud of them. They’re painful to get, and some can be the work of years. These-” he nods toward the Hundred, “all these men have at least one that looks like it was drawn in the dark. Either they all found the same blind tattooist, or they had a knack for finding tattooists who simply didn’t care about their work.”  
  
She closes her eyes and pulls the salty air in through her nose. Tattooists are like craftsmen. She knows about craftsmen. The masters of the crafthouses bend her ear all the blazing time. They would never do slipshod work. Never. Their pride wouldn’t let them. _After all, how could they look me in the eye if- wait. Wait!_  
  
“Minna?”  
  
“I think I know where they all met their careless tattooists. It’s on the way.”

* * *

 


	13. Everybody Loves a Parade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Red Jenny proves persistent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want a little more of Teagan's backstory?  
> [ _Rainesfere Welcomes You_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13834338) is mildly relevant to this chapter and less than 2000 words.

* * *

When barrel-chested Dockmaster Rulf learnt that Lady Cousland and Bann Thingamie would be heading through the docks, he’d ordered the roadway clear.  
  
Now he wishes that he hadn’t: it’s attracted a crowd of idiot spectators with no regard for schedules.  
  
_Maker’s pimply arse, everybody loves a parade._  
  
He’s had to cordon the idiots off with a perfectly good length that should be replacing the mooring line on the westernmost pier at this very moment. So now the pier’s waiting for a replacement because of these idle numpties. _Bloody waste._  
  
The docks look all tarted up in reds and purples what with the lot of them just standing there gawping. Idle travellers in foreign plumage. Nobles’ whelps with toy knives at their hips. Pretty girls in bright wool frocks. Minstrels in sturdy boots, with their livelihoods on their backs. A few crafty little Laurels in their Chantry-red cottes, likely harvesting purses.  
  
_And all these blighters want to talk._  
  
Apparently, Bann Thingamie is famous in the Bannorn for beheading twenty men at a stroke in the heat of combat against the Orlesians - no, the Wilders - no, a _cabal of maleficar_ and then the Templars begged him to join up but he wouldn’t, because he’s a retired Templar - no, because he’s got a lover in the Circle Tower - no, because he’s _Queen Anora_ ’s secret lover and sworn to protect her even at the cost of his own life.  
  
Naturally, Dockmaster Rulf doesn’t believe that.  
  
Because twenty men would hardly line up to lose their heads.  
  
Also, he went down to the Hanging Hundred at daybreak, checking for familiar faces. He saw with his own eyes, among all the dead strangers being locked up in the cages, just one headless man. Nicely done, as beheadings go. Of course, Dockmaster Rulf isn’t one to snuff a wild story with wet fact.  
  
After all, he’s got manners.  
  
Still, facts are important.  
  
Saying Bann Thingamie beheading five men in the heat and confusion of combat sounds almost realistic, so that’s what he tells them. That, and “No, Lady Cousland won’t be stopping.” “Yes, she’s pretty.” “Yes, she’s unmarried.” “No, I’ve never met Bann Thingamie.” “Get back behind that blighted rope, _or so help me_!”  
  
They pass through on horseback, lead by Lady Cousland’s enormous black mabari. _Tack. Good name for a mabari with sea legs like his._ Tack’s as imposing as ever with that collar of bear claws and the streaks of white kaddis across his face.  
  
Next come the two riders abreast.  
  
Lady Cousland on a Highever horse, in those blue-black leathers, with the Cousland Laurels decorating her helm. She’s barely recognizable with that thing over her face, but he'd know Her Little Ladyship anywhere: the same toothy grin since she was six years old.  
  
Bann Thingamie is a tall man. Broad shoulders. Longsword. He looks like a proper knight with the sun glinting off his helmet and armour. Could be riding alongside Lord Fergus or His Lordship and not look out of place. There’s a tower painted on the shield fastened to his huge black horse’s right hip. Of course, he would be a landsman, coming from the Bannorn and all. _Nobody’s perfect._  
  
The crowd cheers.

Some of the pretty girls throw bits of ribbon at Bann Thingamie and swoon.

Minstrels beg for a word or two.

The little Laurels are hard at work.  
  
Lady Cousland salutes Dockmaster Rulf - hand on heart, head bowed - as they pass.

Bann Thingamie follows suit. Sure looks a proper knight.  
  
Everybody sees.  
  
Dockmaster Rulf waves back at them, and they’re gone.  
  
Chased after by the little Laurels beating it back to the Chantry before the sisters learn they’re up to mischief.  
  
The crowd starts shoving off. He doesn’t care where, so long as they’re no longer here.  
  
He’s got ships and cargo to move.

* * *

Teagan is unfamiliar with Highever, but he’s sure they could be taking a more direct route to the castle. True, Minna did warn him they’d have to undertake a “grand parade,” but he’d hoped she was exaggerating. Sadly, no.  
  
The route they take from the docks winds uphill through narrow cobbled streets lined with squat stone crafthouses, rowdy taverns and foppish public salons. More than once, the tavern keepers stop them to press a “favour” into their hands. Neither Minna nor Teagan have discovered the trick for avoiding these encounters.  
  
“Lady Cousland, how far are we from the castle?” Teagan’s trying to sound like a good sport, but so far, he’s had to declare five cups of cider the finest he’s ever had, and he’s just had a sixth shoved at him.  
  
“Oh … another pint or two, I reckon,” Minna’s gripping her gelding’s mane for extra support, “but our guildmaster friend is closer.” She looks somewhere close to tears as she swallows the last of her sixth cup.  
  
Teagan hands the cup back to the lanky tavern keeper, “Truly, ser, your cider’s as fine as Rainesfere’s.”  
  
The tall man’s face splits into laughter, which is fine, but then he says something so garbled, Teagan has absolutely no idea what’s funny, but the longer they’re stopped, the larger the crowd grows. Then the Coastlander’s words twist themselves into a question.  
  
He swivels to Minna for translation.  
  
She grins and points to the board over his tavern: a crown on a red hill. “Master Bran fought at the Battle of the River Dane, so he tries to keep southern brew on tap at _The Queen Rowan_. That cider’s as fine as Rainesfere’s because that’s what it was.”  
  
Teagan smiles at Master Bran, who’s grinning proudly up at him.  
  
“Master Bran,” Minna explains, still gripping her gelding’s grey mane, “This is Lord Teagan Guerrin, Bann of Rainesfere.”  
  
Master Bran and the crowd rejoice.

Teagan suspects the ale flows all day and night at _The Queen Rowan_.  
  
Then Master Bran yammers something ending with “-grows ‘em y’self?”  
  
Relieved but wary, Teagan nods and adds, “I brew the cider, too.”  
  
This meets with uproarious approval.  
  
Minna quickly excuses them before they can be pressed into another blighted cup.  
  
When they’re safely distanced, Teagan sheepishly thanks Minna for translating.  
  
“Of course! If ever I’m in Ansburg, I hope you’d do the same.”  
  
“It would be my pleasure.”  
  
“Did you learn all about cider-making in Ansburg?”  
  
“Only cider-drinking, I’m afraid.”  
  
When she grins, she looks least like the fierce, dragon-helmed skirmisher.  
  
“I learned in Rainesfere. After my first winter there, I decided to restore Bann Branan’s orchards. The Orlesians set them on fire at the beginning of the Occupation, but a few tress survived. The locals foraged them, but they said the trees yielded rather ... unpalatable fruit. When they showed the trees to me, I understood why - they bear cider apples, not eating apples. As it is, they’re especially well-suited to the climate and soil-” _Maker, why am I talking about farming, of all things?_ “-Winters are long in the south. I do a great deal of hunting, but without books, I’d go mad. During my first Landsmeet, one of the merchants in the market had an Orlesian volume on cider-making …”  
  
“You learnt how to make cider by reading a book? _In Orlesian_?”  
  
“Sort of. I also corresponded with a brewer Honnleath - it's another village in the arling - until he moved away-” _-or died of boredom._ Teagan wonders when he became so dull.  
  
“And _you make_ Rainesfere’s cider?”  
  
Teagan nods, hoping Minna will change the subject to anything else.  
  
“No wonder Granda liked you.”

* * *

“The guildmaster,” Minna nods toward the three storey building at the top of the hill. Like every other building in the town, it’s a stout stone affair, with broad eaves for shelter against the inevitable rain. Unlike any other building in the town, every window has a flower box stuffed with rashvine. An enormous whalebone hornpipe hangs in the place of a sign over the polished double doors.  
  
As they approach, waving at townsfolk like idle idiots, Minna wonders if the Maker hates the Friends.  
  
The note said “western end of the docks.” Naturally, she’d expected a crowd just past the Hanging Hundred, so she’d faithfully paraded Teagan and his tagged saddlebag through. But the road was clear.  
  
There was absolutely no reason to stop.  
  
So then she’d hoped she could take advantage of the docks proper. Every day, they’re a crashing stream of people and cargo. The uninitiated are easily waylaid. But some blabbermouth told Dockmaster Rulf their route. The dear old fusspot made sure the road was clear. Completely clear. Clear of any damned chance for that blasted signet to be lifted from Teagan’s offside saddlebag.  
  
Again: no reason to stop.  
  
Every step closer to Castle Cousland is putting Teagan in jeopardy.  
  
If one of the castle’s grooms finds the ring before she can retrieve it, Teagan could be accused of piracy. Not openly - in whispers. She’s confident her parents would shrug it off as a misunderstanding. Cailan would laugh it off as an absurdity. But it would be enough for rumours to grow. The signet ring would be the seed. It would germinate in the fact that Teagan Guerrin visits the Free Marches annually _By Ship_ , and watered with all the poisonous suppositions that nasty minds like Rendon Howe could imagine. After a season, maybe two, Ferelden’s ignoble nobles would harvest deadly fruit. Such fruit would first be fed to Teagan, then to any who came to his aid - certainly Cailan, her parents and very likely Uncle Evan.  
  
If Teagan or one of his two men find the ring, they’ll get the wrong end of the stick. At best, they’d suspect a servant of interfering with Teagan’s saddlebags. If Cailan heard of that, both Highever and Storm Coast would feel compelled to undertake a search and produce a likely suspect for flogging. Utterly unacceptable. At worst, Teagan would think the ring part of some conspiracy against Cailan. This would compel him to seek and find the conspirators. That could keep them in Highever well past Satinalia, until she and the Friends could riddle their way out of it. Also unacceptable.  
  
That signet ring has to go.  
  
Now.  
  
But how and where are the problem.  
  
There’d been a point - just after saluting Dockmaster Rulf - when one of the Chantry orphans caught Minna’s eye. A tall, strong boy with tidy blond braids. Twelve or thirteen, judging by how his shoulders were beginning to strain at the seams of his red cotte … had she seen a wink? It was so fast, it could just as easily have been dust. Or nothing. Just another Laurel. One of several dozen in the teyrnir. They all wear Chantry-red cottes. It’s nothing to do with the Friends.  
  
Tack stops - hackles raising.  
  
The riders pull their mounts to a halt and look, confused, from the mabari to each-other.  
  
Then a knot of men erupts from the alley beside _The Hornpipe_ , brawling in a tangle of limbs and fists that rolls into the middle of the street. The crowd presses closer to the violence.  
  
Minna shouts, warning the crowd back, but she’s too hoarse to be heard. Besides, in Highever, everybody loves a brawl.  
  
The scrum is a tangle of howling and snarling men. Two break away, rolling together onto the cobbles in front of the horses.  
  
Minna spots red on the other side of the crowd: a girl - a Laurel - pleasantly chubby with brown hair fastened in two thick braids. Unlike everybody else in the crowd, she isn’t watching the fight. Her sharp black eyes are fixed on something to Minna’s right - the arrow with red fletching. Testing, Minna slowly pulls the arrow from the quiver. The girl’s eyes follow.  
  
_This is it._  
  
Minna repeats her warning to the crowd, pulling Jasper backward, quickly behind Luthias, then forward. Hopefully, it looks like Jasper’s shying. Nobody’s really paying attention. She and Jasper will give the Friends some cover while they go for Teagan’s offside saddlebag.  
  
A knife flashes.  
  
Teagan jumps from Luthias, wedging himself between the two men.  
  
Minna grabs Luthias’ reins and slides off Jasper, standing between the two horses. “Tack! Help Teagan!”  
  
Teagan holds the men apart by their shoulders - wide open to an underhanded attack, but for the enormous mabari snarling at his hip. Not even the most drunken brawler is that foolish.  
  
Minna watches the Laurel through Teagan’s arms. She hasn’t moved. But Luthias snorts and fidgets and Minna hears something wooden scrape the cobbles directly behind her.  
  
The men bawl and flail in Teagan’s grip. Their fellow brawlers crowd them, weaving and crowing.  
  
Minna strokes Luthias’ shoulder, watching Teagan disperse the brawlers, until she hears the wooden something scrape the cobbles again.  
  
Teagan turns back to Minna and she thanks him graciously.

Off to the side, an older Laurel boy with tidy blond braids returns an empty firkin to _The Hornpipe_. Another Laurel - a pleasantly chubby girl - waits for him outside, tying red ribbons into the ends of her thick brown braids.

* * *

 


	14. Of Course, They Serve Broth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Teagan is propositioned and Minna picks up the tab.

As expected, the front doors to the Hornpipe opens into a bright but narrow vestibule, with the requisite house guards. They look ready to question Teagan, but spot Minna at his shoulder, and instead wave both them and Tack through with barely a glance.  
  
Once through the heavy double-doors, it takes a moment for Teagan’s eyes to adjust to the dimmer room. It’s a large space with broad, worn floorboards, softly lit by a number of opened windows and assorted ship’s lanterns hanging from the ceiling and hooks on the wall. The generous fieldstone fireplace at one end is already clear of ash and ready for the evening. Roomy, thickly-carved chairs cluster around a dozen large, low tables.  
  
Only one of the tables is in use: a ship’s crew, judging by their greatcoats and the peculiar caps, quietly drinking a bottle of black liquor between them. Beside the bottle is a plain cap: worn leather, no ornament. The sort cabin boys wear. The circles under the sailors’ eyes are nearly as dark as their ale.  
  
Teagan remembers last night’s relentless gale, and looks away.  
  
On the wall opposite the fireplace, a polished wooden bar presides over the room. Assorted foreign bottles are displayed on shelves behind. The contents of the topmost shelves are guarded by a grate, likely the property of the Hornpipe’s seafaring regulars. Below the shelves, on stands, is a prodigious collection of Ferelden brew, including - Maker’s mercy - yet more Rainesfere cider.  
  
A tall, curvaceous redhead with khol-rimmed eyes and a glossy, pouty mouth glides over to Teagan. Her Orlesian silk dress whispers around her legs and strains against her bodice. In the lantern light, every strained wrinkle of the blue-green bodice shimmers, and every move she makes is calculated to take full advantage of this mesmerizing effect. She uses an Antivan oil to fragrance her hair. It’s warm, spicy, vaguely floral, very inviting and familiar enough to make Teagan’s stomach twist into knots. She places a manicured hand on his bicep and squeezes.  
  
“To what do we owe this honour, my lord?” She purrs, bowing her head and looking up at him demurely, through thick, blackened eyelashes.  
  
Teagan smiles politely. She’s … quite pleasant, but that scent: his stomach turns decidedly sour.  
  
Minna coughs lightly from behind Teagan’s other shoulder. “Rennie, is Lady Rosmarin around?”  
  
Rennie’s eyes widen. Her pouty mouth drops open, she releases Teagan’s arm, and steps back from him a half-pace. “Lady Min- I didn’t realize it was you!”  
  
“There’s not really any reason why you should,” Minna pulls off her helmet and her jacket squeaks. “I hate to be trouble, but if she’s here, I’d appreciate a few minutes of her time.”  
  
“Of course - it might take a little time to … um … would you care to wait for her?” Rennie gestures to the far end of the room, on either side of the broad hallway are a number of passageways, each heavily-curtained in a different colour.  
  
As Teagan pulls his own helmet off, he notices how Rennie’s posture and even her voice straighten as she talks to Minna. More like the women and girls in his own bannorn.  
  
Minna shrugs, again squeaking. “Might be best. Everybody with a mug’s been pouring brew down our throats since we left the docks. I feel a bit wibbly.”  
  
Rennie nods and guides them to the closest passageway. The purple curtains. It’s an alcove, comfortably furnished with the same worn opulence as the main room. The fireplace is accordingly smaller, but no less clean and ready. Minna looks around the space and nods, then tosses her helm on the low table and trudges off down the hallway with Tack in her wake, leaving Teagan with Rennie.  
  
“The usual?” Rennie calls after her.  
  
“Yes, please!”  
  
Teagan stares after Minna. _Maker, she’s abandoned me in a brothel._

* * *

Rennie’s waiting for her in the hallway when she and Tack return from the privy. “Lady Minna, I had no idea you were there! Honest, I just thought he was some noble with a mabari, I-”  
  
“Maker, Rennie, Relax!” Minna started officially visiting the Hornpipe two years ago, when she took her place with the Riders. But she’s known Rennie for four years, including the only time she’s ever seen Rennie this upset. But then, so was she. “I always visit with a partner. What’s wrong?”  
  
“You come in with _other Riders_.” The way Rennie says it makes it sound like Highever’s Riders don’t frequent the Hornpipe.  
  
“And they spend good coin, eagerly and often. So that’s not it.” Minna waits for the older woman to explain, or at least to calm down. They are not friends. That's impossible. But they try hard to be friendly and usually succeed. Neither of them can afford to stop talking to each other. The guild and Highever need each other.  
  
“We heard about the ambush. Heronson was in here in the small hours, collecting your men.”  
  
“None too quietly, I’m sure.”  
  
Rennie smirks and shakes her head. “You never think a man so small could be so damned loud.”  
  
Minna snorts. She knows Heronson rents a garret from the guild. She’s always assumed that he has a longstanding preference for one of them, but she’s never riddled out who. “So because you heard that Teagan saved my skin in an ambush, you assume we’re together?”  
  
Rennie nods.  
  
“No. He’s not _with_ me in any way except that we’ve been travelling together.”  
  
Rennie’s eyes narrow. “Are you sure?”  
  
“Quite sure. Teagan’s a grown man. He owes me no explanation or … _allegiance_.”  
  
Rennie nods again, exhaling. Her shoulders loosen and she smiles a little. This is the Rennie that Minna usually sees. "Your Antivan prince is back."

"Maker's sweet asshole, I only want to handle one disaster at a time." The merchant prince has been visiting, almost quarterly, for the past two years. Their first stop, after the docks themselves, is always the Hornpipe.

Rennie snorts, but quickly recovers. "I'm sorry, but he is." He brings his handful of attendants to the Hornpipe as part of the trip. It's his way of ensuring they leave Castle Cousland's servants alone and he stays on Eleanor Cousland's good side.

Minna sighs. "I'll be sending them back soon enough." It was Heronson who first told Minna that this particular Antivan visited Rennie after failing to plead his case with Lady Cousland.

Rennie can't look at her, but she nods stiffly.

Minna overheard the gossip about her own ineptitude before Heronson could stop it. She knows Rennie didn't start the gossip any more than she did, but she also knows that Rennie's a bit fearful of her. "Unless you've complaints about him, it hardly matters. Where's Lady Rosmarin?”  
  
“She'll meet you in the alcove, but she wants you to look upstairs first. I'm sorry, Lady Minna, but there's a third disaster.”

* * *

Teagan finds his way back to the alcove with relative ease. When he pulls the heavy brocaded curtain back, he’s met by a slim man in fine wool trousers and an Orlesian silk shirt standing in attendance. The low table is laden with steaming bowls of mint-water with towels on one side and steaming mugs of dark broth with a loaf of bread on the other.  
  
Teagan’s mouth waters. That shared apple was hours ago.  
  
“I saw you come in with the Little Ladyship,” says the slim man. He wears thin braids in his long hair, and looks to be somewhere in his mid-twenties. Unlike other men his age, however, he’s completely clean-shaven. “This is all she’s ever in here for, but if you’d prefer, my lord, we do have stronger-”  
  
“-No, please, no.” Teagan pulls off his gauntlets and sits. He flexes his hands in one of the bowls of mint-water and breathes in the steam before splashing his face. The steward hands him a towel, and as he uses it, Teagan can feel his second wind approaching. "I’m unaccustomed to the local customs."

"My lord?"

"The drinking here's a bit more fierce than the Bannorn. I don’t want to be reeling by the time I get to the castle. Her Ladyship hardly deserves _that_.”

The steward flickers a smile. "Teyrna Eleanor is a remarkably tolerant woman, my lord."

"Please, just Teagan. How are you called?" There's something slightly un-Ferelden in the steward's accent, but Teagan can't place it. He's not a Marcher.

"Ash," he pauses, probably debating whether to call Teagan by name, but decides against it.

Teagan stretches his legs out in front of him and, with a gesture, welcomes Ash to sit in the chair across the table.  
  
His eyes widen. “My lord, I’m a _guild member_ -”  
  
“-I’d assumed.” He hadn’t, but it doesn't change his offer. Besides, after so many surprises since last night, Teagan can't find the energy to get worked up over confusing a prostitute for a steward. Highever's oldest brothel outclasses anything Denerim has on offer. “Please sit, if you’d like. I only wanted to chat.”  
  
Ash tilts his head to the side, considering. In the main hall, somebody tunes a fiddle.

* * *

Gilmore learnt years ago how to hold a line. His Lordship insists that all his men can square themselves against anything, including and especially his daughter. Little Ladyship has always had a knack for turning up where she shouldn’t, and poking her nose in where it oughtn’t. She’s like a mabari hound that’s caught scent of a fennec, but fiercer.  
  
So of course here she is, bold as brass, in a second-floor corridor of the Hornpipe, of all places, staring up at him and demanding he step away from the door and let her into the room.  
  
“I’ve been looking at dead men all day long.”  
  
He will not yield. Tack can stare menacingly at him all he likes. “You can’t see this one, Lady Min.” His voice strains against his duty to defend the Lady Minna’s person and honour. On the one hand, it’s a queer notion: Little Ladyship is second-in-command of Highever’s Riders and easily the equal of any man on the field or off. But on the other hand, she can still be hurt.  
  
And this will hurt her.

Lady Min stares up at him, scouring his face, just like when she was little and never wore shoes.  
  
Gilmore swallows hard and stares down at her, not even bothering to blink back the tears she provokes.  
  
“Why not?” Her voice is little. Smaller than the shoeless girl.  
  
“Because it’s Ser Gesso.” _Who taught us both to patter Antivan._

Tack whines.

“No.” She tries to squeeze between Gilmore and the door frame.  
  
“It is.” His barehanded grip on her arms is iron. He will not yield.  
  
“It can’t be.”  
  
“Min - Lady Min - please believe me.” Gilmore takes a deep breath. His tears are gone. They can’t both cry. “It’s Gesso. You can’t see him because he’s _naked_.” He shakes his head firmly. “You know what he’d say about that.”  
  
Minna snorts. “He’d die of shame.”  
  
Gilmore snorts and nods. _Maker, he would._ Gesso relishes - _relished_ \- the ladies, but his Seawolf and her Pup weren’t ladies. They were sacred trusts. Gilmore can’t let the old knight down.  
  
“Lady Rosmarin wanted me to take a look here,” she says glumly.  
  
Gilmore shrugs. “I’ve already seen him and the room. I’ll wait here to give the Guard my report. Then I’ll come home and report to your parents. Please, Lady Min, let me spare you this. It's the least I can do for him now.”  
  
She nods. “Was yesterday Gesso’s _regular_ day here?”  
  
He can feel the frown tightening his face. _Just like a mabari hound that’s scented a fennec._ “That's the queer thing: it wasn’t. There's a lot wrong with this, but I’d sooner save it all up for one report. You shouldn’t keep your parents waiting.”  
  
“Very well.” She bows her head and recites an Antivan poem so quietly, Gilmore must strain to hear it. Not a poem - the Chant. In Antivan, it rhymes. It’s the bit recited at a warrior’s funeral, at least in Highever. The bit about crossing the stars to be with the Maker. Gilmore doesn’t know the Chant by heart in any language. He doubts Ser Gesso did. But he’s sure he'd be touched to tears by prayers like this in his mother’s tongue. “If you’re delayed past dinner, I’ll pass your apology on to Rowan.”

* * *

 

A shapely woman in her later years sweeps into the alcove.  
  
Teagan rises from his chair and nods.  
  
She inclines her head, slightly. The heavy purple curtains swing shut behind her, blocking out the scattered laughter and stray music coming from the main hall. She wears a gown of port-coloured silk and cream lace with the aplomb of an Orlesian dowager, but without the absurd mask. Instead, she’s covered in a dusting of shimmery powder. Her her lips and eyelids are painted, and something darkens her eyebrows to match her voluminous black wig. The overall effect makes her seem ornamental, but Teagan knows better. _Ornamental_ is the last thing a wise man can expect from the Hornpipe’s Madam. This can only be Lady Rosmarin.  
  
She ejects Ash from his perch with a look. She urges Teagan to resume his seat with a gracious wave of her hand and claims Ash’s chair, sitting in it like it’s a throne. Ash stands behind the chair. Her attendant.  
  
“It’s rare for us to host a man with such gracious manners at this time of day, Lord Teagan. I trust your visit is to your satisfaction?” Her voice is soft and smooth like the Orlesian silk she’s wearing. She’s not Orlesian, Teagan decides, but Ferelden and probably a born Coastlander.  
  
“Thank you, it has, my lady.”  
  
“And the company-?”  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Teagan can see Ash clench his jaw. “-Quite pleasant, my lady.”  
  
Ash unclenches his jaw.  
  
“Would you be more comfortable in a … _private_ room?”  
  
“Thank you, my lady, but I’m afraid I don’t have time, this time.” _Or any time. Maker’s balls, what’s happened to Minna?_ The thought of her in a private room ... _with someone_ drops into his mind like a rotting apple. He stares at the table, at Minna’s helm, and wills the lurid thought to die. He glances over at Lady Rosmarin.  
  
Her painted lips coil slowly into a smile.  
  
_Holy Blazes._ Teagan doesn’t like to gamble because he doesn't have much of a card face. He might as well be nailed to the Chanter’s Board for anyone to read. He isn't suited for the subtleties of Highever. In Rainesfere, the people are straightforward and praise that in their bann. Here at the Hornpipe, he's a liability for Minna. _Less than five minutes with this woman and you’re already fuelling gossip that will hurt her_.  
  
The purple brocade twitches. Minna slips into the alcove. Tack follows silently, as a shadow should.  
  
Again, Teagan rises from his chair.  
  
Minna smiles wearily. “Please, Lord Teagan, do sit down.” Compared to the Hornpipe’s women, with their colourful silks and painted faces and careful poses, Minna looks like an exhausted mercenary. And small. Her armour fits, but without her helm, she looks far too young and too sweet to visit a brothel.  
  
Or a row of gibbets.  
  
Or a battlefield.  
  
But there she was and here she is, and when she sits, she doesn’t swing her feet like a child. Instead, she soaks a towel in hot mint water and wipes her face and hands. She breaks off a hunk of bread and soaks it in broth before passing it down to Tack, who plunks himself on the floor at her feet and snaffles it down. Then she takes her mug of broth and slowly swallows the rest before returning it to the table.  
  
Lady Rosmarin smiles in approval, one eye on Teagan, and waits patiently for Minna to start.  
  
“Thank you for your hospitality, Lady Rosmarin.” Unlike Lady Rosmarin's, Minna’s chair is not a throne. It’s a chair. She sits in it like the Teyrn in his hall: legs stretched in front, leaning on the armrests, attentive, but eager to get up and do something else.  
  
“I’m honoured that you’d visit this humble hall so soon after your victory, Lady Cousland.”  
  
_Maker, the formality. This is going to take forever._ Teagan looks between the two women, straining to contain his impatience. Tack sighs loudly, possibly in agreement.  
  
“Well, you have good broth," Minna says. She might look exhausted, but her wit's sharp.  
  
Lady Rosmarin’s mouth twitches. She closes her eyes and shakes her head.  
  
“C’mon, you'll be busy later, so I’ll keep it short: I need a favour.”  
  
“Do you owe me, or do I owe you?”  
  
“After upstairs, we’re even.”  
  
Lady Rosmarin leans forward, her voice suddenly hard, “I explained to Ser Gilmore: that wasn't any of my girls and boys.”  
  
Minna takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly through her nose. “Can you prove it?”  
  
Lady Rosmarin scowls. She turns to Ash. He steps forward and she urgently whispers to him.  
  
Seizing the moment, Teagan leans over to Minna. So close, he can smell the mint on her skin, and whispers, _“Should you be trusting anybody here?”_  
  
_“We won’t get very far without trusting somebody.”_  
  
_“But the Flashcode,”_ he presses, _“somebody in the town was getting that message.”_  
  
_“I know. I’m taking a gamble, but I like our odds."_ She takes a deep breath. _"One of my father’s knights lies dead upstairs. He was …”_ She takes another deep breath. _“Teagan, he was a good man. An honourable man. He deserved a better end than_ here _. It would have been easier for Lady Rosmarin to call the Bann’s men in and let them deal with it. Instead, she wanted to spare us the worry of a missing family member.”_  
  
_“He was family?”_  
  
She stares at Teagan. Her eyes well with tears.  
  
Teagan looks away, then pulls out his sketchbook, opens it to the tattoos and hands it to Minna.  
  
“Lady Rosmarin,” Minna turns back to the Hornpipe’s Madam, “I came here because need a favour.”  
  
Ash clears the table and makes a discrete retreat through the heavy curtains.  
  
Lady Rosmarin stares at the sketchbook and shrugs slightly. “I’m not an art critic.”  
  
“No, but as Highever’s Guildmistress, you would know who is.” Minna places the sketchbook in the middle of the table.  
  
She makes no move to claim it.  
  
“Is there something I can do for you?”  
  
“Now that you mention it.” She smiles. _She’s been waiting for this._ Eamon has the same wolfish smile when he thinks he’s got the upper hand. Teagan decides he won’t share this observation with anybody.  
  
“Do tell.”  
  
“I want Sarethia.”  
  
Minna frowns slightly. “Lady Rosmarin, I don’t mean to tell you your trade, but is there much demand for elves in their sixties?”  
  
“Oh, Maker, no!” She laughs, startled. “-Not like that. She leans on my ‘blooded and flat-eared girls. They show up for work in tears - if they show up at all. It’s bad for business - _their business_ \- but she doesn’t care. I’ve tried talking to her, but I might as well talk to that damned tree of theirs. I want that old busybody to spare us her diatribes until after the Hornpipe’s finished the Satinalia trade.”  
  
“That’s a _long_ time.”  
  
“Bullshit. It’s three months.”  
  
Minna eyes the sketchbook.  
  
Lady Rosmarin picks it up, ignoring the tattoos, and flips through the past few months of Teagan’s sketches. She stares at him, surprised. “Birds?”

“I left the nudes at home,” he says dryly.

She clicks her tongue, dismissing Teagan, and studies the tattoos. “Where did you see these?” she asks Minna.  
  
“On our guests at the Hanging Hundred.”  
  
“What do you want of me?”  
  
“I want to know if any guild members recognize the owners. The Guard there have been ordered to accommodate you and anyone you bring.”  
  
“You want me to visit the _Hanging Hundred_?” She makes it sound like Minna wants her to dress up like the Divine and service a hurlock in the middle of the market.  
  
“I just came from there." Minna sets her jaw and stares at Lady Rosmarin head-on. Teagan can feel the two women dancing close to the line separating Favours from Orders. He suspects Minna would prefer to keep things friendly, but she's growing impatient. She is, after all, the skirmisher from last night.  
  
 “-Why _me_?” Lady Rosmarin wheedles. Clearly, she doesn't see Minna the way Teagan does. She doesn't feel Minna's impatience, or she might try something more effective than whining.  
  
“Because I know those men didn’t get scratched _here_. Probably the Maidenhead?”

Lady Rosmarin nods, shifting on her throne.  
  
“I need you, as the Mistress of Highever’s Guild of Brothels, to visit the Maidenhead. Find the _boys_ or _girls_ , or _boys_ and _girls_ , who might shed a little light on who those men are.”  
  
Lady Rosmarin shrugs. “They’re executed criminals. What more is there to tell?”  
  
“Ordinarily, I’d agree with you,” Minna waits for Lady Rosmarin to lean forward. She doesn’t wait long. “But when Lord Cousland had them stripped for the gibbets, his men found a couple of rings.”  
  
“Rings?”  
  
“Rather modest, but even so, my brother wants them returned to the families. He’s tasked me with finding them, if I can, but the Maidenhead …”  
  
“No. No you wouldn’t do them any favours visiting in that uniform.”  
  
“Why not?” Teagan’s curiosity gets the better of him.  
  
Lady Rosmarin’s look fixes him to his seat. Anora has the same dagger-like gaze when she thinks one of her many lessers is interrupting her. Teagan decides he won’t share this observation with anybody, either. She speaks to him like he's a small child. A slow small child. “Because the Maidenhead’s clientele avoid the Guard and any officials. Sending one of the Scourge’s riders into that place will only start a brawl.”  
  
_Scourge._

Teagan’s eyes snap to Minna.  
  
“Please, Lady Rosmarin, take the most likely guild members from the Maidenhead to the Hanging Hundred. Have them look at the men. If they can give you a name, or a home port or village, that would help me to find these families.”  
  
Lady Rosmarin stares at Minna. “What if there’s nothing to know?”  
  
“If you sincerely try, then I still owe you Sarethia. If I can get the rings back to the families, I will reward whoever at the Maidenhead gives you the information.”  
  
“How much?”  
  
Minna takes a deep breath. “A sovereign each.”  
  
“A sovereign for each family?”  
  
“No. Each guild member.”  
  
Lady Rosmarin’s painted eyebrows shoot up, into her wig. Coin flows freely through the Hornpipe, as demonstrated by their Orlesian silks and Antivan scents, but at the Maidenhead, Teagan suspects, a single gold piece is a vast fortune.  
  
“Please record what you learn in Lord Teagan’s book.”  
  
She nods obediently. “I’ll send the book up to the castle with Ash, unless you don’t need another tenor for the Tears.”  
  
“I always need another tenor who can stay on-key and knows the words when sober.”

* * *

The wind picks up, biting sharp at Teagan's ears. Dark clouds are drifting in from the Waking Sea. Tack barks at a few gulls on the road ahead.

"Storm tonight," Minna affirms, pulling Jasper closer to Luthias.

Teagan likes riding closer. He's getting used to leaning down to talk to her. "I don't recall Fergus telling you about any rings."

"You've got a good memory."

"Why?"

"You must've finished your turnip when you were as a wee lad."

" _What_?"

"Turnip's good for memory."

Teagan snorts.

"Yeah, that's what I used to tell my Nan. But she would never have any of it."

"Minna," _Why do I have to persevere to talk to her?_ "Why would you invent a pair of rings?"

She shrugs, squeaking. "Because it's plausible. Because I want to motivate their memories. And because I don't want our Flashcode conspirators to suspect we're hunting them."

" _We're_ hunting them?"

"I don't think I'll get very far without trusting _somebody_."

Maker help him, he grins.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Want a little more about Ser Gilmore?** He began as a squire in [_The First Day_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13048506), which is a one-shot under 1000 words.  
> 


	15. Teyrn Turnip Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Seawolf takes a bite out of the Soldier.

* * *

 

“Bryce, are you mad?” Eleanor hisses. She’s shaking. Actually shaking! She’s never been this angry with her husband. Not even when they first met, and _Maker_ , was he ever an ass back then.  
  
The door to the library thumps shut behind her. The servants lighting lanterns in the hallway probably overheard. Screw it.  
  
“How is rewarding an enormous kindness with a favour ever madness?” Bryce asks, trusting his smooth baritone and charming manners to calm her. It usually works, but only because she allows it. It’s not working today.  
  
“A favour, yes. A _specific favour_ \- that would’ve been sane. But you gave him a BOON, Bryce! An unspecified favour of unrestricted size!”  
  
“An unspecified favour of unrestricted size “that is ‘ _within my power’ to grant_ ” - Eleanor, it’s Teagan-”  
  
“No, you-” Eleanor squeezes her eyes and fists shut. A dozen words vie for release. “ _Numpty_! He’s a _Guerrin_!”  
  
“It’s Teagan.” Bryce’s jaw clenches.  
  
Eleanor knows he’s willing to fight her. Once his jaw sets, he’s dug in his heels. But Maker, Bryce Cousland will now hear his wife tell him _How_ and _Why_ he’s one of the biggest idiots breathing on the north coast. “Well, Teagan is Eamon’s _little brother_! Andraste’s ass, Bryce! You’ve just given _Eamon Guerrin_ the whip hand over you.”  
  
The set of his jaw doesn’t change, but his eyes do. She knows _he knows_ she’s right. Somewhere in that turnip-filled head of his, he knows it.  
  
“How could you make such a mistake?” Her voice breaks. She scowls. She hates crying, especially in front of anybody, but the fury drains from her as quickly as it came, leaving only weepy exhaustion. She presses her forehead against the cool window and squeezes her eyes shut against the choppy waters outside. She doesn’t realize Bryce stands behind her until his arms are wrapped around her waist.  
  
“My darling Ellie,” he nuzzles her neck, breathing deeply, making her shiver.  
  
“No. No amount of ‘Ellie’ will cut with me right now.”  
  
He doesn’t relent. He never does. He kisses her earlobe. “Please hear me out?”  
  
She nods, trying to stand as stiff and straight as she can and hoping he doesn’t let her go.  
  
“I agree, on parchment, giving the _Guerrin_ cadet a boon is -”  
  
“-Insane?”  
  
“Unwise,” he nuzzles again, his goatee scrapes lightly at her neck and he moves his entire body closer to hers, sharing his warmth. “But Teagan isn’t a little boy playing conkers. He won’t hand his winnings over to his big brother for safekeeping. He’s his own man.”  
  
“Hrm.”  
  
“Ol’ Fearchar liked him,” Bryce offers, “a great deal, in fact.”  
  
Eleanor snorts. “Yes, Ol’ Fearchar liked him. He liked most men he drank with.”  
  
Bryce chuckles and kisses her neck. “You make it sound like he was willing to drink with just anybody.”  
  
“Fine, I concede: the only reason the Old Man went to the Landsmeet was to socialize with Teagan. And-” she adds, “because we brought the children.”  
  
“Really?” He doesn’t even bother keeping the laughter out of his voice. He revels in his minuscule victory by nibbling her neck.  
  
Eleanor rolls her eyes and bites her lower lip. She perseveres. “Well, we’d spent a war learning about Ferelden politics. Papa … felt Teagan needed someone to take him under their wing.”  
  
“Under their wing and out to the Gnawed Noble. Sounds like friendship to me.”  
  
“Must’ve been, if he took him to the Pearl, too.”  
  
“ _The Pearl_?”  
  
Eleanor smirks. “Papa was a widower for a long, long time. He liked women. Quite a lot. I can’t believe Mama wouldn’t have wanted him to find some comfort where he could.”  
  
“But _Teagan_?”  
  
Eleanor chuckles. “Maker, you Landsmen are so squeamish. Teagan was, what, nineteen, twenty? A grown man whose own homeland was foreign to him. Papa was more sensitive than he liked to let on. He understood that people have needs. Besides, for a few years, Evan and I were sure we could save ourselves headache by just sending Fergus and Ross’ pocket money to The Pearl before the Landsmeet and letting Mistress Sanga decide what they could afford.” She twists around in Bryce’s arms and wraps her arms about his neck.  
  
“Do you know if he spends overmuch time there now?”  
  
Eleanor snorts at the idea of her artless son slipping his marital leash. “Prim little Oriana would cut off his balls with her embroidery scissors and put them in a tiny box if he so much as-”  
  
It’s Bryce’s face that stops her: his mouth drawn into a grim line, his brown eyes cloud with serious thought as he waits for an answer to the question he asked.  
  
“You mean Teagan?”  
  
He nods.  
  
Her stomach lurches. “Bryce, we promised them - _we promised them before they were even born_ \- that we would never use them for gain. That they could choose for themselves. That we wouldn’t ever become the bastards that just rolled over and let those snaileaters -”  
  
“-And we aren’t. I just _feel_ …” He frowns and shifts his weight.  
  
Eleanor smiles inwardly. Bryce is as uncomfortable talking about feelings as her twin Evan is talking about pregnancy.  
  
“Ellie, I know I’m not always the most … perceptive man when it comes to my daughter-”  
  
She runs her fingers through the straight, short hair at the nape of his neck. Soldier-short, thus forever mourning. The decades had faded the hair from brown to grey, but even after all this time, Bryce was a handsome man with an endearing fascination for Alamarri customs.  
  
“-but I haven’t seen her smile in two years.”  
  
_Shit_. Eleanor kisses Bryce gently, hoping it will distract him, but knowing it won’t. She’s been trying to spare him this. Her darling agonizes about so much - the teyrnir can sit so heavily on his broad shoulders - she’s always tried to spare him their children’s unhappiness. “She smiles.”  
  
“For others. For show. I’ve been watching her when she doesn’t think anybody is looking, Ellie. She’s miserable.”  
  
“Give her time.”  
  
“She’s had time. Two years. I wish Nate were coming back. I know they’d be happy! At the very least, I wish I knew why he left, so I could help Pup _understand_ it.” He clenched his jaw again. Frustrated by a riddle he had no hope of solving.  
  
Eleanor understood because she’d tried to solve it, too.  
  
The last she saw of Nathaniel was at Pup’s birthday feast, when he left to take an urgent dispatch. After that, nobody could account for him. Reluctant to appear an interfering mother to Pup, she’d asked Gethen Heronson and Ser Gesso to quietly look into it. Gethen didn’t get far: the rider had been so unremarkable, none of the Castle Guard (ordinarily careful men) could recall his livery, but he’d been riding a horse too fine for a servant. The dispatch itself had been sealed, but as the rider insisted on placing the message into Nathaniel’s hands himself (everyone agreed the rider was a human man), nobody had checked the seal. Gesso didn’t fare much better: Gilmore somehow ran into Nathaniel as he was leaving Amaranthine. Nathaniel was somehow convinced that his departure was for Pup’s “own good,” but Gilmore hadn’t understood much beyond his own anger at Nathaniel slighting Pup, and that was all Gesso could get out of him.  
  
With so little understood, Eleanor and the men were forced to drop the matter.  
  
But even without proof, Eleanor could smell it.  
  
The answer to the riddle.  
  
It lingers on the edge of awareness, like the tang of old smoke in a darkened library. Eleanor knows Rendon Howe is involved.  
  
She doesn’t dare voice her suspicions to Bryce. Her husband is a famously loyal man. Loyal, reasonable, dutiful, kind. But when it comes to Rendon Howe, reason leaves Bryce in the lurch, and his own loyalty twists around his eyes like a blindfold.  
  
Perhaps it was because they’d both survived White River. But Bryce's loyalty makes no sense to Eleanor: Bryce saved Howe’s life that day. By all accounts, Howe fought well, but the Rebels were quickly overwhelmed. Howe was gravely injured. Rather than leave his comrade, Bryce risked his own life to drag Howe to safety.  
  
Bryce paid for his loyalty in blood. A Chevalier’s sword caught him on the shoulder as he shielded Howe’s body with his own. Between Bryce and Bryland, they got the delirious Howe to Bryland’s sister, Elaine, who then proved her reputation as a skilled healer.  
  
After that, Howe refused to leave the safety of his own home. He became famous to the Rebel Fleet as the _Little Arl in the Big Keep_ , and they couldn’t count Amaranthine as a safe harbour. Howe refused to leave and join the battles - neither on land nor sea - to defend the Coastlands against the Orlesian Navy.  
  
Not when Bryce, his liege lord, called for him.  
  
Not when Maric, his king, called for him.  
  
Not when the Orlesians menaced his own Amaranthine, nor when they lobbed fire at her docks. And certainly not when they converged upon Denerim Harbour. In fact, after White River, Rendon Howe never fought for Ferelden again.  
  
Yet Bryce refuses to believe anything negative about Howe.  
  
But Eleanor knows: Rendon Howe is the son of the Orlesian collaborator that Bryce’s father brought to justice in Harper’s Ford. Before the skirmish, Ol’ Fearchar himself knotted the rope that inspired Tarleton Howe’s midair jig.  
  
It was for Bryce’s sake that Eleanor kept her counsel when Pup took a shine to Howe’s eldest. Pup was so young at the time, Eleanor suspected her fierce girl’s liking for Nathaniel might be overtaken by stories of Dane or Garahel. In the meantime, Nathaniel proved himself to be radically different from his father: quiet, yes, but kind and honourable and scrupulously truthful. Nathaniel did not back down from a fight. The boy’s only flaw was that he loved his father. Eleanor could only watch as Howe used the natural impulse of any child to twist his own son to his will.  
  
And now, somehow, Howe’s will was now making Pup bitterly miserable.  
  
And that was making Bryce miserable.  
  
And that could not stand.  
  
“I’m not stupid, Ellie: she’s been taking … unnecessary risks this past year.” Bryce sounds sheepish.  
  
“Gethen Heronson’s been keeping an eye on her.” Eleanor probes her husband very gently. Whatever it is, he wants to say it, but she needs to keep him talking.  
  
“Gethen’s been reporting back to me. Every week. This last stunt of hers has us both sick. Ellie, she didn’t need to do that alone. But this sort of thing is becoming typical. She deliberately puts herself in harm’s way, playing the odds, even when they aren’t in her favour. Last night, she left the castle before anybody realized she’d gone. She saddled Thistle herself, rather than find Nye or a stable hand. Nye was only in the kitchens getting his supper…”  
  
Eleanor stares at Bryce, her heart pounding, as furious as the rest of her. _How could he keep something this terrible from me? How dare he?_ She feels a sob building in her chest, but beats it back with fury. “What is this? Bird watching? Bryce! Why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
“I hoped it might pass. That we were wrong-”  
  
“-This is not something to approach with a wait-and-see attitude!”  
  
He nods, abashed.  
  
“You better warn Gethen. If I catch that little bastard in the next few days, I’ll pin him to the chapel door by his ears!”  
  
“Ellie, I ordered him to report to me-”  
  
“I’m her _mother_ , Bryce! _That trounces all!_ ” she bites back the sob. Punches Bryce in the chest.  
  
He holds her, rocking slightly from foot to foot, stroking the silvery-copper braids twisted at the back of her head. “I made a mistake, Ellie. Please forgive me. I won’t do it again.”  
  
“Thank the Maker somebody caught her-” Eleanor sobs into Bryce’s shoulder, soaking the fabric with her tears and snot until she feels calmer.  
  
Bryce kisses her on the top of her head. “We both know Pup won't risk someone else’s safety. I’m going to ask Teagan to help her get to the bottom of this slaver-ambush business."  
  
“You think that _Teagan Guerrin_ is some sort of remedy? Honestly, you need to stop reading that trash from Kirkwall.”  
  
“Ellie, didn’t you watch them talking? He makes her smile.”

* * *

 


End file.
